I'll Crawl Home to You
by aemelia113
Summary: Natasha knows she can never be a mother after the Graduation ceremony, but the Red Room hand-delivers her a son under the title of 'pupil.' While laid up with an injury, she teaches Peter everything she knows about being a spy and in turn, learns how to need other people again from a boy who needs her to survive the Red Room. Getting out was easy. Real life? That was the hard part.
1. Two Spiders Walk Into a Web

Being laid up with an injury wasn't something that _happened_ to Natasha. Her enhancements usually made short work of wounds that would take an ordinary human months to repair. If her own biology didn't sort things out quickly, then the medical staff of the Red Room would speed things up. Not this time, though.

"The hell do you _mean_, I'm off duty for four months?" she growled at one of her handlers, hating that the ankle to hip cast on her leg took the edge off of her ordinary level of menace.

The scientist hiding behind Grigori explained, "The chemicals that you were attacked with are impeding your healing process. Trying to accelerate it how we normally do could catastrophically destabilize your DNA's integrity. It will have to heal on its own."

"But you said that it would only take _two_ months for my bones to mend," she reiterated, voice tight with annoyance.

"The other two are for physical therapy, to help with any muscular atrophy. You have to be in peak condition before we send you back into the field," she gulped. "Otherwise you could just get injured again and spend even more time off duty."

She pursed her lips, but conceded. "Fine. What would you have me _do_ for these four months that I'm not permitted to work?"

Grigori smirked, and she resisted the urge to break his nose for being smug.

"We've acquired a new asset that has been giving us some trouble recently, and the superiors think that sorting it out is a perfect job for you," he began. "A child with great genetic potential recently came into our possession, and has been augmented with superhuman abilities, but he's... reluctant to use them for the Red Room."

Natasha tilted her head, thinking. "I'll need a full background on him if I'm going to find a way to persuade him. What abilities does he have, and what orders has he been resisting?"

He scowled. "_All_ of them. The whelp won't _fight_, even to protect himself. I'll get you his file, but the good doctor here would be more equipped to explain the nature of his abilities to you. I'll have the information and the brat conveyed to your quarters within the hour."

Grigori stalked off, and the scientist nervously straightened and tried to be brave without her human shield. "Erm, the boy's parents had him tested for the X-gene at a routine doctor's appointment, and we monitor for that kind of thing, to keep an eye on potential enhanced recruits. He's not a mutant, but he is a carrier of the X-gene— someone who would be a likely parent of a mutant child, but who would never mutate on his own. We have discovered through testing that X-gene carriers are more resilient to radical DNA changes, and more likely to survive experimentation."

Natasha tried not to think about how they would have discovered this, and very carefully did not confront her feelings associated with human experimentation— especially on children. Her tone was light as she asked, "How did you enhance him?"

"Oh, that's actually part of the reason that the superiors thought you'd be such a good fit to teach him," she said, brightening slightly in the face of Natasha's apparent calm curiosity. "They applied the Black Widow serum to genetically modified spiders that had been subjected to radiation, and then injected their venom into the asset. He acquired spider-like abilities, such as enhanced strength, better senses, and the ability to adhere to surfaces. He does not appear to have the ability to produce webbing or venom, but he does appear to have a slight precognition regarding immediate danger, which is quite fascinating—"

"They placed him with me because my _code name_ is a spider?" Natasha interrupted, arching a brow skeptically.

"Well, yes— and because he has a variant of your serum," the scientist agreed, blinking. "They want you to bond with him, coax him to work for us and to embrace his latent... aggressive instincts. You've had the capacity to kill since you were a child, and they want you to try to unlock some of that in him. He has the power; it's just something psychological that's stopping him."

Natasha's skin crawled at the idea of turning another child into a weapon like her, but she knew that if he didn't make himself useful, the Red Room would dispose of him— or worse, break him down for parts and try again on another child. She would do this to help him survive, even if it was not an enviable way to live. She also couldn't risk pissing off her superiors until she was back in fighting form. _God_, she hated feeling weak.

"Why not brainwash him like the Winter Soldier?" she prodded, digging for information rather than actually suggesting they unmake the kid. The "like me" went unspoken, but it made the atmosphere uncomfortable.

"It's harder to make it stick with younger children," she explained, frowning. "Their developing brains are too malleable and they just undo every change. Neuroplasticity doesn't slow down significantly until the early twenties. And... he's incredibly intelligent. I was one of the ones who fought against more invasive mind control attempts in order to avoid brain damage. He could be a valuable intellectual resource to the Red Room someday."

She determinedly ignored the creeping edges of flashbacks to her own time being subjected to 'more invasive' mind control techniques. "How old is he?"

"Nine, but we got him at age eight. The difficulty in getting him to obey orders has been persisting for about nine months, and the superiors are at the end of their ropes with this one. You're his last chance to become a productive member of the organization before they decide he's a waste of resources."

Natasha nodded, pasting on a cocky smirk whose self-assurance she didn't feel. "I'm the Black Widow. I don't fail. If I decide he's going to listen, he will listen."

The scientist nodded, reassured, before excusing herself back to her lab. Natasha hobbled back to her quarters with all the dignity she could muster on crutches. The file she'd requested was on her bed, but the kid wasn't there yet. Good. She had time to do her homework, then. She lowered herself to the mattress, sitting with her legs draped over the edge of the bed and her torso turned towards the foot of it. She spread the papers of the file out in front of her, scanning for important information.

Peter Parker, age nine. Born in Forest Hills, Queens. Parents died in a plane crash two years ago, engineered by the Red Room, of course. Then he entered foster care and promptly vanished, listed as a runaway. He had close relatives in the same city, but the Red Room had ensured that they never got a chance to make a claim on Peter's guardianship. Made it look like a carjacking. The file showed some of his school records. He was a bright child with a particular gift for STEM fields, as evidenced by his grades and his science fair victories.

The file photo from his yearbook was— and Natasha had never, _ever_ said this out loud in her life and likely never would— unbearably adorable. He had brown, slightly curly hair just long enough to touch his eyebrows, big brown bambi eyes behind thick, round glasses, a smattering of freckles across his round cheeks, and a precious smile that had the tiniest gap in the front teeth. He was a cute kid, and it made her stomach twist to think that he'd probably look nothing like that when he got here because of how the Red Room filed the edges of soft things into lethally sharp points. If nothing else changed, there would be no smile on his face. Experience had taught her enough to be sure of that.

She looked over the papers again, not gleaning much else from it other than the impression that he'd been a happy, healthy kid before this. That was too much to dwell on, so she put everything away and decided to read some Anton Chekhov poetry until they brought Peter to her. She only made it through a couple of pages before the sound of boots approaching her door alerted her to her incoming guests. She put the book away and pushed to her feet, standing at attention.

Her handler entered first, without knocking, followed by two guards who were dangling Peter between them. He did indeed look different from the file photo— his hair was chopped to a practical length, his eyes were dull with fear and exhaustion with no glasses in front of them, he was gaunt and pale with none of the freckles from the photo (it was unlikely that he'd seen the sun in months if not two years), and the smile was as absent as predicted.

The two guards dropped Peter on the floor, roughly sending him to his knees at her feet. He winced, but did not cry out. She gave the guards a flat, unimpressed look to avoid staring at the defeated child kneeling before her. He was clearly too weak to put up any resistance, and throwing him at her feet was entirely unnecessary. They had the sense to take a step back and duck their heads slightly. She looked to her handler, raising a questioning brow.

He understood what she wanted from him. "Your mission parameters are fairly loose, Widow. Get him to start listening to orders and put some fight in him. Your methods are up to you, and your resources are unlimited— within reason. Your time is limited to four months. If, by the time you are ready to reenter the field, you have the asset whipped into shape, you will continue to be responsible for his training until the superiors deem him fit for solo missions."

She nodded sharply. "Thank you. I'll take it from here, gentlemen."

They all left her alone with the boy, shutting the door hard behind them. He flinched at the bang and then cowered away from her as if he expected to be struck for flinching. She swallowed a pitying sigh and regarded him calmly. She waited for two minutes, giving him plenty of time to make eye contact on his own if he would. He did not. She'd have to be gentle with this one.

"Look at me, please."

He whipped his head towards her, gazing up at her with wide, wary eyes that lingered on her cast for a moment. Well, that answered the question of whether or not he could understand Russian. He didn't make a sound, though.

"Can you stand, Peter?"

He gaped at the use of his name, but he nodded quickly and scrambled to his feet. When he swayed, she steadied him. He jolted at the contact of her hand on his shoulder and stared at it for a second before remembering that she'd asked for eye contact and shooting his gaze back to her face. He seemed confused and anxious, anticipating some kind of pain. She let go of his shoulder when she was sure that he wouldn't keel over on her and sat down, patting the space beside her on the bed. He didn't move, curling his hands to his chest and tugging at the collar of his plain black shirt uncertainly.

"Will you sit next to me?" When he hesitated, she added, "I only want to talk."

Slowly, cautiously, he sat down on the bed, putting a good two feet of space between them. He didn't take his eyes off her, but she remained perfectly still with her hands folded in her lap.

"I'm going to ask you some questions, and if you don't want to answer them yet, you don't have to. If you want to answer the yes or no questions by shaking your head instead of talking, that's fine. You won't be punished for speaking or choosing not to. Do you understand?"

He nodded, drawing his legs to his chest and watching her with curious eyes.

"Do you know who I am, Peter?"

A head shake.

"My name is Natasha. Around here, I'm called the Black Widow. I'm a spy for a part of the Russian government called the Red Room that protects the interests of the country covertly. I'm the best at what I do, but I got hurt on my last mission, so my job while I get better is to figure out what's going on with you. My job is not to hurt you or scare you, and I don't want to do either of those things. In fact, I _promise_ not to."

He was looking at her with something like wonder, and his shoulders relaxed a little, but he didn't come closer or let go of his knees. She decided to keep going.

"Do you know why you're here?"

His brow furrowed and he made a little so-so gesture with his hand.

"They want you to become a spy like me, and they want me to teach you how. They're upset that you won't do what they ask you, and they want me to find out why you're not listening so I can change your mind. I'm not going to brainwash you. I plan to change your mind just by talking. First, I'd like to figure out why you don't want to obey your handlers. I'm not mad. I just want to understand. Is it because this for Russia, and not America, where you were born?"

He shook his head, hugging his knees tighter.

"Is it because you miss your parents? Do you want to go home?"

Tears welled up in his eyes and he shook his head vigorously as he dashed them away with his sleeve. He buried his face in his arms, wrapping his hands tightly around the ends of his sleeves.

"I'm sorry to bring up painful memories, Peter," she apologized softly. "So you understand that they're gone?"

He nodded against his folded arms and lifted his face to look at her, lower lip wobbling. Telegraphing her movements, she reached out slowly and brushed a lock of hair over his ear. He leaned into the touch slightly, expression crumbling into grief. She held the position until he lifted his head and gazed at her beseechingly, eyes wet and red.

"I'm sorry for that," she told him sincerely. "I lost my parents when I was younger than you. I've been with the Red Room ever since. They trained me and gave me powers, too. I don't always agree with the way they do things, but this has been my home for most of my life. This isn't what you want to hear, but you get used to it."

He was guarded again, but the sympathy and the similarity of their situations had made him start to warm up to her, so he was still listening. She got back on track.

"Are you not listening to orders because you don't like it here?"

He thought for a moment before making the so-so gesture again before rethinking and shaking his head. She did her best to interpret that.

"So you don't like it here, but that's not why you won't follow instructions?" she tried, and she got a nod in return. "Is there something about the instructions themselves that you don't like?"

He nodded emphatically, letting go of his knees and leaning forward. He reached a hand towards her and she took it out of instinct, squeezing it. For someone who'd never had a chance to be much of a child, she was apparently good at comforting them. She tried for a smile and got a very slight one in return. She was making progress.

"Do you think you can explain it to me, Peter? Take all the time you need."

He was quiet for about three minutes, jaw working and expression shifting as though he was having a silent conversation with himself. Eventually, he began in a croak, "I don't want to hurt anybody."

His Russian was decent, though the pronunciation wasn't the best, likely due to the fact he didn't talk much. "Can you elaborate, Peter?"

He spoke haltingly. "After they— after I got these powers, I'm so strong that I can break concrete walls. If I hit a person like that, it could kill them, and I don't want to kill anyone. I'm... afraid. I'm afraid of how strong I am now."

This was an opening she could use. "If I could teach you how to moderate your strength, do you think you'd be more willing to fight? If I could show you how to not hurt your opponent any more than a normal soldier could, would you let me?"

"I— I don't know..." he hesitated. "That would be better, but I don't— I don't want to hurt anyone at all."

She nodded, pursing her lips. She told him what she didn't want to say. "Peter, if I can't convince you to learn how to do what I do, they could kill you. Or worse. I'm not ordinarily a teacher. This is their last resort before they do something drastic. I know you don't want to hurt anyone, but if you want to survive here, you're going to have to."

He whimpered and curled in on himself again, trembling. Her heart clenched to see him so frightened. She shifted closer and put her arm around him. He turned his face toward her and buried it in the crook of her neck. She patted his back consolingly and made soothing noises until his breathing slowed down.

"I wish it didn't have to be like this, but I'm trying to save your life, Peter," she sighed, rubbing his shoulders. "You don't have to decide today, but we don't have much time. For now, how about I get us something to eat and you can try to rest?"

He nodded tiredly against her neck, but didn't let go of her for another few minutes. She got him settled on her bed and made her way to the mess hall. Balancing two trays of food was a challenge, but she used the two cups of water and two cartons of milk as pillars to stack them without crushing the food. She endured the humiliation of struggling with this burden on one crutch as well as she could and managed to get it back to her bunk unscathed. The door was another story, but she only lost a little bit of water in the process. She set the trays on her desk and roused Peter by shaking his shoulder.

He flailed awake, but didn't injure himself or her, so she'd take the win. She was gentle as she told him that she had dinner for them and invited him to use the only chair in the room to eat at the desk. She was fine balancing her tray on her lap while sitting on the trunk at the foot of her bed. Peter was obviously hungry, but she encouraged him to eat slowly so he didn't make himself sick.

"Do they not feed you?" she asked with a touch of anger in her tone.

"Yeah," he mumbled through a mouthful of bread, "but not enough. I'm always hungry now, ever since the spider thing."

"I'll speak to someone about increasing your rations," she hummed, tearing into her own bread. "You'll have to take it slowly at first. Eating too much too quickly after malnutrition can mess you up."

"Yes, ma'am, Ms. Widow."

Natasha stilled and looked at him incredulously. He shifted self-consciously and fiddled with his fork.

"What?"

"Peter, you don't have to use my codename. You can just call me Natasha."

"Oh, okay Ms. Natasha."

She wasn't going to argue the point further, so she shrugged and went back to eating. She stacked both of their trays on the desk when they finished, then sent Peter to shower before bed, giving him her extra pair of pajamas and making a note to ask for some extra clothes for him if he was going to be staying with her. It didn't look like they intended to fetch him back, so it must be part of their plan for Natasha to 'bond' with him. Fine by her.

He came back swimming in her clothes, and she felt a fluttering in her chest at how young and vulnerable he looked. She covered it by instructing him that she didn't care if he didn't stay on his side of the narrow bed (perhaps slightly wider than a twin mattress) but if he kicked her cast in the night, he was getting thrown to the floor. He agreed to it with a comment that at least he would get a mattress and she had to fight down an impulse to chew out Grigori for how Peter had been treated. Of _course_ he wasn't cooperating with the Red Room if they treated him like a prisoner. She'd at least had basic barracks accommodations at his age.

The poor kid was still tired, so he fell asleep before she did. This meant she was awake to feel him curl into her side sleepily, which made her insides go just a bit gooey. She hummed a Russian lullaby to herself and eventually drifted off despite being unused to a pocket of warmth pressed against her. If pushed, she might have even described it as nice.

~0~

In the morning, she rose before Peter and left to get breakfast, speaking to Grigori in the hallway when she ran into him on the way to the mess hall. She asked for the things she needed, hesitating before deciding to skip asking for another cot. She told herself it was because physical affection was important to emotional bonding, especially for kids. This would only speed up the process of getting him to trust her. She did ask for a small table and another chair, though, and managed to only sound _slightly_ scolding when she spoke to Grigori about the dismal nutritional and sleeping arrangements Peter had been enduring.

She put a little extra food on his tray, and began the process of conveying it back to her room once again, this time with a bit more dexterity.

He was awake when she got back, though he still waited for her okay before heading to the desk. They ate in silence other than the 'good mornings' that Natasha had initiated. When they were done, she sat back on her bed, waiting for Peter to join her on his own for about ten minutes before huffing and inviting him directly. He sat cross-legged beside her, attentive. She decided she'd go ahead and try again to get him to train.

"Even if you don't want to fight anyone, I could teach you how to control your strength just for your own sake. It might be nice to know, no matter what you decide."

Peter regarded her thoughtfully before hesitantly agreeing, "Okay. I think I could try it."

She smiled at him. "Thank you, Peter. Let's head down to the training room and work on your restraint, then."

He followed right on her heels down the hall to the gym, and he only tucked himself closer when he saw all of the agents sparring on different mats around the room. He whimpered when one of them drew blood from her opponent with a long knife, and Natasha turned his head away with the free hand that wasn't holding a crutch.

"Don't look at them; look at me. You don't worry about what everyone else is doing. We're not going to be hitting any people today. You're just going to show me what you've got and then we'll walk your intensity back to reasonable levels."

"Yes, Ms. Natasha."

She showed him to the area where enhanced soldiers trained and instructed him to start at the lowest weight available to lift and then work his way up until it hurt to pick it up. He made it to the top weight with no problem, which was at least five tons. Natasha was incredibly impressed, but she kept her features blank.

"Okay, so you're pretty strong, but you managed to eat without snapping the fork in half, and you didn't hurt me when you held my hand. Have you ever broken something you didn't mean to?"

He nodded, looking ashamed. "Yeah, I've broken a few doors... and sinks... and guns."

"I'm not disappointed, Peter. I just need to know how far we have to go. Has it been a problem lately?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am."

"Okay, then why are you afraid of losing control?"

"Because when I'm scared, it's harder. I'm not as good at it when I'm freaking out."

"Okay, here's what we're going to do, then." Natasha picked up a medicine ball, the heaviest one they had, and placed it on a stack of plyo boxes that was about five feet tall. She stepped back and gestured to it. "This is a person you have to punch to get past him and complete your mission. I want you to hit him in the face hard enough to work, but not hard enough to knock his head off."

Peter stepped up to the makeshift dummy, drew back his arm, and threw his fist forward. It connected with the medicine ball, splitting the vinyl and sending sand spilling everywhere. She had a broom and pan fetched, and Peter cleaned it up. She replaced the medicine ball with the next heaviest one and asked him to try again. He did, and this time he didn't break it, but he did send it flying into the opposite wall with a hard smack. He left to retrieve it, and put it back on the stack himself, looking to her for guidance.

She moved forward and corrected his form, showing him how to throw a good punch without hurting himself, untucking his thumb from the inside of his fist. She demonstrated proper shoulder position, reminding him that his power came from his core and to keep his elbow level with his wrist. He tried again with much better form, but he _did _break the medicine ball this time. He cleaned it up, and she put another one on there, telling him to do it again. He sent it flying several more times and broke one more medicine ball. By lunch, he had managed not to send the thirty pound one flying anymore, and she told him he'd earned a break.

This time, he went with her to the mess hall to get a tray, but when she made to sit at one of the public tables, he shied away. He wasn't ready to be out here with all these people yet, so she changed directions and led him back to her room, where a table and chair was waiting. She sat in the new chair, and he dragged the one from the desk over. They ate in silence again, but it was a soft silence, not weighted by fear or suspicion from Peter anymore.

When they walked back to the training room, he was still her little shadow. They picked up where they left off, and she kept coaching him about good form, giving him tips about how to control the force behind his punches. By the end of the day, he was managing to only nudge the ten pound medicine ball with decent regularity. She clapped him on the shoulder with a smile.

"Great job, Peter. That medicine ball weighs the same as a human head. Once you manage to teach your muscle memory not to send it flying, you'll have a good handle on not hurting a person you're hitting too badly. After you get so good at this you could do it in your sleep, we'll see if you're brave enough to try it on a human opponent."

He nodded slowly, not as reluctant as before. "You really think I could do it?"

"I know you can," she encouraged warmly. "If you're still not ready to fight someone after you master punching, we can work on kicking, and point you at a real dummy once you get good at not breaking the equipment. We can't work on more sophisticated moves until you have a live opponent, but we have a little time to get you comfortable with the idea of sparring."

"Thanks, Ms. Natasha," he mumbled.

He was a little more comfortable looking around on the way to dinner, though he still wanted to eat in their room. That was okay. Slow progress was still progress, and pushing him early on would only hinder her efforts to get him to relax. She was determined to save this kid, even if that meant turning him into a monster like her. Surviving was surviving, no matter how you got it done.

And she would get it done.


	2. Spiderling

Peter's training was going well. After two weeks of working with the medicine ball and learning good fighting form, he had graduated to real dummies, and he was working on kicking without destroying things. It was harder for him than controlling his punches, but he was working on it. He was warming up to her quickly, and seemed marginally less afraid of the rest of the base. He didn't stick to her like a little shadow anymore, but he did still insist on taking meals in her room. He wasn't required to like anyone else at the Red Room as long as he didn't impede operations, so Grigori didn't care about Peter's shyness.

The other agents were not as indifferent. They mocked the scared little boy who clung to the coattails of the Black Widow. They might have tried to mock the wounded Widow who _let_ a scared child follow her like a lost puppy— _if_ they hadn't known that she'd make them suffer if they said a word about it. The only reason they'd made the mistake of mocking Peter was because they didn't know that they would be made to regret it. Nair in the shampoo works just as well on vain special operatives as it does on the nasty girl from cheer camp. There was also some minor psychological torment because Natasha didn't mess around when it came to her reputation or her young charge. It wasn't like she had any friends to lose anyway.

Peter's growing confidence in his own control made him open up more around her. He was more talkative, telling her stories and science facts. He smiled more. Thanks to the amount of snacks Natasha had secured for him, he was healthier, too. He was moving around more freely and breathing easier. The bags under his eyes had vanished with the ample sleep he was finally getting, still curled into her side every night.

Natasha was healing, too. The pain in her leg was all but gone unless she walked on it much. She hated the cast and crutches with a vengeance, but she was now a quarter of the way through her recovery time. She just had to be patient. Somehow, it was easier than she'd imagined it would be.

"What are you reading?" Peter asked one day, taking a break from the book on espionage she'd put in front of him. He was having a hard time because it was in Spanish, and he was still clumsy with the language, but translating it was part of the learning process.

She looked over the top of her book and then turned it around to show him. "It's a book of poetry and short stories by Anton Chekhov. It's an indulgence of mine."

"You just read it for fun?" he clarified as his eyes scanned the pages.

"Yes. Would you like to read with me?" she offered, noting how he looked like he wanted to flip the page and see more.

"Could I?" he asked, and it was progress from a week ago when he would have backed off and apologized for wanting something.

"Of course," she told him with a smile, patting the bed next to her.

He hopped up and scooted next to her, tucking himself under her arm and holding up the right side of the book while she held the left. He read just a little slower than her, so she would watch him consume the words with fascination until he turned the page. Eventually, it was time for a snack break, so she gently recommended that he go back to his less fun book after he ate, while she filled out some paperwork. He huffed a bit, but went without complaint, and she ruffled his hair fondly as he passed her.

It was high time she admitted to herself that she had a soft spot for this kid like an overripe plum. He was just too damn endearing. How was she supposed to remain cold and detached when he sleepily mumbled "night, Ms. Natasha" as he snuggled into her side at night? Maybe she was breaking the cardinal spy rule about getting attached, but the Red Room had made the mistake of making him her responsibility and telling her that he had her serum. She felt a connection, and she felt responsible for him. She wanted to see him do well at this, in spite of the ugliness of the business. It would at least mean he was _safe_.

When Peter snuck into an auxiliary lab and made her better crutch cushions and a sticky stabilizing sole for her cast, she finally had to admit to herself that she was starting to think of him as her kid. Not like a son, or anything. Just _hers._ Her little spider. Around the one month mark, that's what she started calling him. It was an accident— it was supposed to remain part of her internal monologue and not be voiced into reality.

"Well done, malenkiy pauk," she told him as he demonstrated a spinning kick he'd been working hard on for a week.

He grinned at her, and she was so taken aback at the brightest smile she'd ever seen on him that she blurted, "_What_?"

"You called me your little spider," he informed her smugly. "It was cute."

"We're both spiders," she muttered. "That's why they put us together in the first place."

"Spider solidarity," he giggled, peering at her sideways.

She glared with a playful gleam in the corner of her eye. "When this cast is off, I'm looking forward to pinning you to that mat to wipe the smug look off your face."

"You're welcome to try," he teased, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

He was more okay with the idea of fighting her than anyone else because he knew she was just as durable as him, but he'd still never seemed this eager to spar with her. She played it cool, not wanting to spook him by reacting to it.

"That's a confidence you've yet to earn. You only say that because you've never seen me in action. And don't call me cute. I have a reputation to maintain, and the harder I have to work at it, the more blood the cleaners have to scrub out of the floor."

"Ominous," he remarked cheerfully. "Love it."

She actually laughed at that, and he looked so proud of himself that she couldn't help but keep her smile. She got him back on task and started to teach him about combo moves, not letting up until he could execute at least three on command by dinner. He was a fast learner, coming along well. She could only hope that he'd be ready to fight actual opponents soon.

The moment she finished eating dinner with Peter, there was a knock on the door. An agent let himself in and announced that Grigori had requested her presence. He left without more than a nod, and she stood to follow. Peter handed her the crutches with a worried look, and she shot him a reassuring smile.

"I'm sure it's just a routine report," she lied. "Nothing to worry about."

The dramatic bastard was standing with his back to her when she entered his office, and she rolled her eyes at his pretentious attempt at intimidation.

"Sir," she greeted dryly. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes, Widow. Please, have a seat."

She sat, and only then did he turn to face her, leaning both hands on the desk.

"I'll skip to the point, agent. I've been observing your behavior around the asset, and it seems obvious that you've developed... affection for him. That wasn't part of your directive."

She shrugged, unintimidated. "You said to bond with him. That only works if it goes both ways. He isn't going to trust someone who doesn't care about him."

He lost his temper, snapping, "It wasn't supposed to be _real_!"

"So I happen to like spending time with a boy who may be one of my future coworkers— and according to the superiors, my full time pupil. What of it?" she asked archly.

"You know that love is for children," he hissed, knuckles tightening on the desk.

"Peter _is _a child," she countered. "You got to him too late to make him a perfect psychopath. If you want loyalty, that's going to come from emotional connection to someone here. You made that someone me. I don't see what the problem is."

"The problem is that you were supposed to make him into a fighter, not your pet!" he finally yelled, pounding a fist on the desk in a way that was clearly meant to make her flinch.

She wasn't impressed.

"I still have three months to get him ready for field work, if you recall. You thought I was the best for the job, and you ought to trust my process."

He forcibly cooled down and walked around the desk to loom over her. She still wasn't impressed.

"And if I told you tomorrow that the superiors have decided that the asset is no longer valuable?"

She met his gaze levelly and informed him crisply, "Then I suppose you'd lose two valuable assets due to poor judgment. I am a woman, and we _are_ prone to hysterics, according to you— yes, I've seen your social media posts. If something happened to my only pupil, I simply don't know _what _I might do while distraught."

He turned an alarming shade of purple. "Don't be foolish, Natalia. Don't throw away your career for an experiment gone wrong."

"Hmm, I don't suppose I'll have to if you behave sensibly, will I?" she hummed, cocking her head at him. "You can't assess that anything _has _gone wrong without giving me time, either."

He leaned into her space and growled, "Get results. Now. Or else you'll _both_ be sent to reprogramming and rewritten into something more convenient."

"Certainly, sir. I'll see myself out," she told him calmly, rising in a way that forced him back a step.

She made it around the corner before she let the snarl curl onto her lip. A couple of frightened agents took one look at her expression and darted down a different corridor. Smart move on their part. How _dare_ that utterly replaceable man threaten Peter? She already had two plans threading through her mind to have him disgraced before she glanced up and saw Peter standing at the end of the hall. Her expression melted into concern when she saw that he looked as if he'd been crying. He waited for her to hobble to him before turning away and walking to their room. Hell, now she was thinking of it as _theirs_ and not just hers.

She sat beside him on the bed with a sigh. "How much did you hear?"

"Everything," he mumbled guiltily. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just followed you to make sure you'd be okay."

"That's very sweet, Peter. I'm not angry, I promise. I'm just sorry you heard something that upset you."

"You didn't have to do that!" he burst out suddenly, eyes desperate. "You didn't have to put yourself in danger to protect me. I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"Oh, malenkiy pauk," she cooed, stroking his hair, "they're the ones in danger if they ever threaten you like that again."

"But I heard him say they'd mess with our heads if I don't get good at this by the time your leg is better," he protested. "I'm not gonna let them wash your brain, Ms. Natasha. Starting tomorrow, I'll fight real people. I promise to be good."

"Peter, you don't have to—"

"But I do," he insisted. "That's why they brought me to you. I'm gonna follow the orders so that we're safe and nobody takes you away."

Her heart clenched and she swallowed her protests to say, "Okay. We'll get you sparring with some agents first thing tomorrow. I'm proud of you."

This was what she'd wanted from the beginning, the only thing that would keep him safe from the harsh pragmatism of the Red Room. So why did it make her sick to her stomach? Oh, right— this was step one in turning him into a killer like her. They'd never settle for anything less.

There was a long silence before Peter spoke again, "Hey, Ms. Natasha?"

"Yes, Peter?"

"The mean man said love is for children," he began slowly, "and you said _I'm _a child."

"You are," she told him, poking him in the side playfully.

"Yes, but—" he cut himself off and shook his head. Then he mumbled, "Does that mean you love me?"

Thoughts warred in her brain. Everything she'd been taught versus the way she felt about making sure this kid stayed safe and happy. She knew what she was supposed to be, but she knew that what she'd become was something else. Something softer. Someone that cared about more than herself and the mission. She wrapped her arms around Peter and took a shuddering breath, pressing her lips to the top of his head.

"Yeah, Peter," she confessed to his hair. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he mumbled into her sternum.

She was shaking, unable to believe in something so simple. In loving and being loved. It was more terrifying than rappelling off a skyscraper, more nerve-wracking than defusing a bomb, more heart-stopping than taking out a whole gang with two handguns and a throwing knife. Letting herself love anyone was the scariest thing she'd ever done, but it was too late to get out now.

~0~

Natasha was washed in pride as opponent after opponent fell to Peter's attacks. He'd struggled at first because she hadn't taught him much defense. No point with a dummy that couldn't hit back. But once he'd had time to get used to blocking and dodging, he was a natural. He took on each fight with focused determination, and she got distracted by his serious little face instead of paying attention to his moves sometimes. It made him look older, and she had a sudden terrible surety that he'd be fighting this hard for a _long _time.

It was good that he was doing so well, though. She had to remind herself of that, but it was good. It had taken him about a week to really get into the swing of things, but he was making it. Only three more weeks until she got the blasted cast off and she could do more personal training. This was great practice for him, but he needed experience fighting other enhanced people in case he ran into that on missions. She was impatient to get back on her feet so she could stop feeling helpless and start Peter's training in earnest.

After Peter stood up victorious from his sixth sparring match in a row, she signaled the agents to disperse. She strolled up to him and congratulated, "Good job, little spider. Tomorrow, we will take a break from combat and I'll teach you some spy tricks."

"Like how to go undercover and stuff?" he asked, seeming truly _excited _about learning these things for the first time.

"Yes, and how to read body language, and how to bypass encryptions. Among other things," she informed him with a smile. "We started with combat because you feared it, and because it's what the superiors wanted to see the most improvement in. But there's more to being a spy than fighting."

He tilted his head at her. "Like the languages?"

"Like the languages," she confirmed. "I think you'll really like the lessons about gadgets."

His eyes lit up, and she could tell she'd read the situation right. Cool science was cool science, no matter if it took place on a field trip or a secret Russian intelligence base.

That night, he asked shyly if she would read one of the stories to him out loud, and she agreed, but not without asking why.

Blushing, he mumbled, "I'm still not good at pronouncing things, so I could learn by listening? Um, also I like your voice. It's nice."

She smiled fondly and opened the book without further comment— though a different book than the Chekhov stories. She'd managed to find a book of fairytales, thinking them suitable reading for a child. She spun the tale of the Snow Queen to a wide-eyed Peter, and found herself doing different voices for the characters. It struck her that she'd never once imagined what it would be like to read a bedtime story to a child, but here she was doing just that. Despite the swell of conflicting emotions that did battle in her chest, her reading rhythm didn't falter until after Peter had drifted off to sleep, his head lolling against her shoulder.

She pressed a kiss to his temple and couldn't bring herself to curse how soft she'd gotten.

The following weeks, she spent the majority of her time with Peter working on the finer points of espionage. She still took him to the training room at the time when the most superiors and handlers would be watching, to make sure they could have a visual demonstration of his progress. So far, it seemed to be placating them.

As predicted, Peter took to gadgets like a fish to water, and even designed some of his own: a pair of wrist-mounted firing devices for lines of sticky, web-like fibers. He seemed very proud of making something spider-themed, and it was honestly a brilliant invention. She was shocked that a ten year old had made it. Sure, she had known Peter was smart, but not quite at this level. They were still crude, yes, but she had no doubt that he'd keep improving them until they were perfect. On a hunch, she asked him to hide these from command. She could think of dozens of less friendly uses for it than what Peter had in mind, and she could be sure that he'd despise it if his invention was used to hurt people.

He had a harder time learning how to lie. He was good at disguises, cover identities, and altering his body language and expressions, but the more direct forms of lying didn't come easy to him. It was something to work on. He enjoyed lessons on how to tail someone or lose a tail, but it frustrated her that she couldn't take him off base for some real world experience in it. There were only so many conditions of a busy street that she could duplicate in the base. A few other lessons had problems like that, but she'd do the best she could until she could get him some field experience. She was actually looking forward to wilderness survival because it would be almost like taking him camping, which was blessedly close to normal.

Four months had felt like an _age _to her before, but now Natasha was glad that they had as long as they did. It was a miracle that— as green as he still was— Peter was picking up on this stuff so quickly. Now, the remaining two months were closing around her throat like a noose, and she fretted over having him ready in time. Not that she let it show. Still, there were some good things about hitting the halfway mark of their allotted time. Namely, getting the blasted cast off her leg.

Peter insisted on accompanying her to get it sawed off, and he offered to hold her hand like his mom had done for him at the doctor's office. She accepted, partly to humor him and partly because of how green he went at the sound of the saw when it turned on.

There was scarce privacy in their quarters, and as much as she'd tried to avoid it, she'd glimpsed the myriad scars on his little body: precise, clean lines made by surgical tools. It seemed a fair guess that the Red Room had done that to him. She tried not to let the trembling stoicism on his face make her anger at her organization bleed into her expression. She merely squeezed his hand didn't wince when he squeezed back just a bit too hard.

Her leg came free of the cast and she flexed it, stretching every muscle. She rubbed some feeling back into it and let it bend for the first time in two months. It was sore, but it was a relief just to be able to move. She pushed herself off the examination table and stood, left leg buckling instantly. Peter swooped in and supported her on that side, helping her find her balance.

The doctor— the same one who had informed her about her assignment to train Peter— frowned and shook her head. "Black Widow, you must take things slowly at first. It will take at least two weeks of physical therapy before you can walk normally."

Grigori chose that moment to barge in. "Well, we cannot let the asset's training slide while you are recovering," he declared in falsely sympathetic tones. He curled his lip when Peter tucked himself behind Natasha and continued, "We're going to assign another agent to his training until you can walk, at least. We want you to focus on your recovery."

Through gritted teeth, she requested, "I'd like to vet whomever you pick and discuss technique with him."

"That won't be necessary—"

"Remind me who the superiors put in charge of Peter's training," she cut in coolly. "If I can't oversee it directly, I'm going to be part of the decisions made about it. I'm not going to have you undermining my work. And if your agent ignores my directions and screws this up— and he _will_ screw it up if he doesn't listen to me— he's off the job immediately."

His jaw worked in frustration, but he eventually growled, "I accept your terms. You'll meet with the agent I had in mind this afternoon."

He stalked out, and Peter didn't let go of her the whole time that the doctor explained the physical therapy routine. He didn't let go of her until she sat down in their room, supporting her weight on the side of her bad leg until she was at the bed. He fidgeted with his hands and started pacing, glancing at the ceiling at intervals.

"It won't bother me if you want to be on the ceiling," she told him.

His head whipped toward her. "How did you know?"

She shrugged. "I'm a spy. I notice things. If you'd be more comfortable up there, it won't bother me. I don't know why you'd think it would."

He hunched in on himself and kicked at the ground. "The guys who tried to make me fight before... they said it was creepy. They'd hit me harder if I tried to go on the ceiling."

"Idiots," she grumbled. "For one thing, if they're unsettled by a child on the ceiling, they're weak. For another, your ability to stick to surfaces is a tactical advantage, and discouraging it is stupid. I actually think you should get _more_ practice being on the ceiling."

A relieved smile bloomed across his face and he leapt straight up, twisting midair so that he landed on the ceiling in a crouch. He grinned at her, upside down, and she smiled back. He shifted his weight until he was comfortable, dangling by his fingers and toes, but held close to the ceiling, body parallel to it. His eyes closed, his breathing deepened, and then he actually dozed off. Natasha shook her head in amazement at that, smirking to herself as she drafted a plan to tell the agent who would be borrowing Peter for two weeks. She had a bad feeling, and not just because it would be strange to be apart from Peter for so long.

She woke Peter long enough to tell him she was going to her meeting so he wouldn't freak out if he woke up alone. Then she made her way to the meeting room with the help of only a cane. A tall, blonde, musclebound agent was waiting for her, and she suppressed a frown. She knew this one, and she knew that he would be as likely to listen to her suggestions as jump out of a plane without a parachute.

"Mikhail," she greeted crisply.

"Black Widow," he returned, blinking in surprise at the familiar address. "It is an honor to train your pupil."

"Manage your expectations," she advised. "He's young, yet. Still timid. He's a gifted fighter, but he's not anything like me. He requires a gentler hand for now."

Mikhail frowned in confusion. "I had heard rumors that you coddled him, but I thought they were wrong."

She glared. "He's a ten year old who didn't grow up like me, or even you. He didn't volunteer for this or get recruited young enough that this is the only thing he knows. He was taken from his family after the Red Room killed them. Then he was experimented on. He's being asked to fight and kill for a country he's never even been outside to _see._" she spat. "There is a difference between coddling and knowing that compassion is more likely to get through to him than force."

He was slightly cowed by her ferocity. "Forgive me for speaking in haste."

"Sure, if you can attempt to do things my way while you're responsible for Peter. He can handle tough exercises, but he responds well to positive reinforcement. He doesn't have any weapons training yet, so if you throw a knife at him, he will likely end up stabbed. He's fine with knocking an opponent out, but if you ask him to damage someone worse than that, he'll balk. If you have to punish him, give him more work instead of hurting him. He dissociates if you strike him outside a sparring situation, and then he'll be useless for the rest of the session."

"I will attempt to be... gentle," Mikhail said slowly. "I cannot promise I will be as adept at it as you."

"Please just try your best," she said tiredly, knowing that he was going to hate every second of it and would probably screw it up within the first week if not the first day.

For whatever godforsaken reason, Peter had to go sleep in the barracks with the others, as part of Mikhail's plan to get him more used to the rest of the agents. Natasha tried to reassure him when he hesitated to leave.

"Hey, I'm your teacher, but there will be times that you have to work with and follow orders from people who aren't me. This is good practice. You'll be back here before you know it."

Natasha kept her ears open for news on Peter's progress while she worked as hard as possible on getting better. She only had to intervene twice, thank god. Once when Mikhail was calling Peter 'asset' instead of his name, and once when he kept Peter in a choke hold for too long and he freaked out and broke Mikhail's arm because he was scared to die. Mikhail was delighted that he was finally 'showing some backbone' but Peter was nearly catatonic with shame. She had to come and borrow him from the barracks to talk him down. She held him in her arms and stroked his hair while he cried into her chest.

"Shh, shh, little spider," she soothed. "I know it's frightening, but losing control is easier when you're afraid. It's alright. Mikhail will heal."

"He wants me to fight like that _more_, though," he sniffled. "I don't _like_ hurting people like that."

"I know, Peter. And most of the time, you won't have to." She bit her lip before proceeding, "But sometimes you will. Being a spy isn't just knocking people out. It involves interrogation techniques that use pain to force people to confess, and disabling opponents in ways that keep them conscious for whatever reason. Sometimes it involves killing them."

He whimpered and curled tighter around her. She sighed and hugged him closer. This was a band-aid they would have to rip off eventually. Might as well be now.

"Peter, you know my code name is one of the deadliest spiders on the planet. Why do you suppose that is?" She held his chin gently when he looked up at her. "I'm an assassin as well as a spy. I've killed. Numerous times."

He cringed backwards, and she let him retreat even though it hurt her. He regarded her with eyes that were as wary as they'd been the day they met. He was trembling, and shaking his head in denial. He kept backing away until there were five feet between them. He stood in front of her with a positively hopeless expression that broke her heart.

"But you're so nice," he said helplessly. "You can't be— you're not a bad person. You're here because they took you like they took me."

"Oh, Peter," she sighed, dragging a hand down her face, "I am worse than you know. I've done terrible things, only some of which I regret. I told the truth about how I got here, but I got here younger than you did. I always had the right instincts for this job, and I don't think that you do. I had nothing to do with bringing you here, but I'm sorry it happened. Everything I've done since I met you is an attempt to keep you alive in here. I became what I am to survive, and as much as I wish it weren't true, you'll have to do the same."

"No, no, no," he hiccupped, shaking his head violently. "I won't— I can't..."

"I don't want to ask this of you, but if you're going to get to keep your free will, you'll have to learn to be ruthless when they ask for ruthless." She was being as earnest as she knew how to be. "It's okay that you're scared; it's perfectly natural. It's wonderful that you don't want to hurt people, and that soft heart of yours is a good thing anywhere else, but it's a liability here. It will only get _you _hurt."

He sniffled, pausing at length before whispering, "You said you love me."

He looked at her with big, sad eyes that pierced her to her core. Her throat closed, but she spoke around the lump in it.

"I do. I'm sorry I'm not better at it."

"I need— I need to go back... I need some space," he stammered, avoiding her gaze.

"Okay," she rasped, trying to project calm understanding.

He ran away from her, and she didn't think she'd ever felt so alone.

~0~

She didn't see Peter until she'd been cleared to resume his training. He met her in the training room, walking with his back straight, stride steady. He didn't look at her with a trace of warmth, but there was no hatred in his voice when he spoke to her. There was nothing.

"I'm ready to resume my training, Black Widow."

Her heart clenched at the use of her codename, but she responded levelly. "Good. Take your ready stance. We'll be working on weapons training today, but you should warm up first."

He went through the motions, and followed her instructions obediently as she showed him how to hold a knife, how to defend against knife attacks both when you were armed and when you were not, and how to steal a knife from an opponent when you didn't have one. She wasn't as rusty as she'd feared, holding her own against Peter fairly easily.

When it was time to break for lunch, he walked to the mess hall without her, and it shouldn't have hurt as much as it did to have to reclaim her usual spot to the side of the room, where nobody would bother her. Peter was similarly alone on the opposite side of the room. They did more training, and the same thing happened at dinner, after which he went back to the barracks. Somehow, it was harder to sleep alone now than it had been during Peter's two week absence. She tried reading some Chekhov poems aloud to herself, but it just felt hollow to recite it to an empty room.

Two more weeks passed in this agonizing manner, and the only bright side was that the superiors were _very_ pleased with Peter's progress. They praised his new, professional attitude and newfound independence. Peter was acting exactly how they wanted, and she should have been glad because it would keep him safe, but all she could feel was a yawning, pitch black empty space pulsing at her side where her little shadow used to walk.

Finally, one night, the loneliness got to her to the point that she gave up on sleep and got up to wander the halls, deftly avoiding the guard patrols she had long ago memorized. She found herself in an auxiliary training room, going at the punching bag with a vicious energy. She was dripping sweat and running out of frustration by the time she heard little footsteps padding towards the room, but she didn't turn around when the door creaked open softly. Instead, she kept relentlessly punishing the bag.

"Wow Natasha, what did that punching bag ever do to you?" Peter joked, and after the days of radio silence, she couldn't take the lightness in his tone.

"So we're doing first names, now, are we?" she snapped, not turning from her task of hammering fists and knees into the bag.

"Um," he faltered, "I just— I'm sorry for dropping the 'Ms.' but I kinda thought we were past that..."

She finally turned to pierce him with an incredulous look. "Peter, you've called me nothing but my codename for two weeks."

He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "Well, yeah, but that was just around the others. It's not like anyone's listening to us here... are they?"

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, utterly baffled.

"The plan. You know, pretending to be all professional and assassin-y around the boss guys so we don't get in trouble?" He tilted his head at her. "Did I misunderstand?"

"Do you mean to tell me," she began woodenly, "that you have been avoiding me and acting like we barely know each other because you were trying to act how the superiors wanted?"

"Yeah, to protect you," he said like it was obvious. "So they don't wash your brain for not making me act like a real Red Room spy."

To her eternal embarrassment, Natasha actually shed a few tears before she wrestled her emotions under control, muffling her wrecked breathing with a tight grip. Peter looked alarmed and rushed to comfort her, hands hovering uncertainly.

"Natasha, what's wrong?"

She cut him off by pulling him to her chest and hugging him so tight he squirmed. When she finally pulled back, she had collected herself and Peter looked as confused as she had been.

"Peter, I thought—"

_I thought you hated me_. She swallowed her grief and continued on a slightly different track.

"I was under the impression that you wanted nothing to do with me. The last time we spoke, you were so horrified at what I'd done that you ran away from me. Are you not still upset about my actions as an assassin?"

"I mean, I'm still kinda upset," he admitted, looking away. "But I'm not freaked out anymore, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that even though I don't know everything about you, I know _you_, and I trust you. So if you say that you did what you had to and you think that the only way we're going to make it is for me to get with the program, then I'm gonna try my best."

She sighed, letting the tension drop out of her body, and she'd never been possessed by so strong a desire to shake someone and hug them at the same time. This sweet boy had overestimated her ability to read his true intentions, which were noble, but he'd inadvertently caused her so much heartache.

"Peter, if this happens again, I'm going to need you to explain a little better _before_ you embark on a plan to pretend you can barely stand me. I had no idea what you were up to, and I was worried. When did you get that good at acting?"

"I learned from the best," he announced, puffing out his chest and winking at her.

She shook her head fondly and ruffled his hair. "Flattery doesn't work on me, but I can let it slide this once."

"I'm sorry for making you think I was mad at you. I didn't mean to. I guess I should have apologized for running out, huh?"

"You have nothing to apologize for, except perhaps for depriving me of my Chekhov buddy," she joked.

"Maybe I can come back now that they know I'm not dependent on you? They've seen that I'm not clinging to you like a little kid anymore. Maybe that means they won't get suspicious if I move back to your room?"

"You can claim that your sensitive senses let you sleep better with fewer bunkmates, or that I give you extra lessons in espionage theory at night, both of which are true," she suggested.

"We should still eat in the mess hall, though, so they don't think I'm retreating. We could sit at the same table, though," he offered shyly.

"I'd like that, little spider." She cupped his cheek and smiled at him. "I've missed you."

"Me too," he mumbled, nuzzling her palm before pulling away. "We should probably sleep, but I'll see you in the morning?"

"Bright and early. I'm gonna kick your ass," she teased.

"Not if I kick yours first!"

"We're going to have to work on your comebacks so you don't fail the banter portion of your assessment," she mused as she walked away.

"Pfft, there's no banter section!" He hesitated. "Right, Natasha? Right? Natasha!"

The final month was more specialized training for dealing with enhanced opponents and making use of his own special abilities, not including his web-shooters, because those were a secret. He and Natasha sparred a lot for this, though sometimes they brought in the Winter Soldier for variety. He somehow seemed endeared by Peter under the icy exterior. He didn't go easy on the kid, though, and never lost to him, but he was a good teacher through repetition and occasional tips, like he'd been for her. Peter was the only person aside from Natasha who liked the Soldier and regarded him with no fear. This impressed the superiors greatly, though not as much as the fact that he actually seemed to like Peter back.

When Peter knocked him to the ground with a leg sweep and a quick knee-first tackle, he said, "Good job," which startled everyone in earshot.

Peter beamed and stepped back, extending a hand to help him to his feet. The nearest agents lost their damn minds when the Winter Soldier _accepted _the child's hand and went so far as to pat his head. It was the closest thing to affection he'd displayed for anyone who wasn't Natasha in ten years.

"Thank you, Sir!" Peter chirped, oblivious to the momentousness of the action, sliding back into his ready stance immediately.

Peter performed exactly as he was supposed to, and the closer they got to the deadline, the less Natasha was nervous about his assessment. He seemed able to handle anything she threw at him. He was still not anywhere near her level yet, but he was as good as any first year agent.

On the day of the test, Natasha watched from the side with the Soldier as Peter stood across from a massive group of agents that would attack him in pairs and groups at random. He would be starting with no weapons, but was encouraged to steal some from his opponents. They were not Red Room agents. They were all prisoners who had been promised freedom if they killed the boy. If she could afford freer expression of her emotions, she would have been chewing on her thumb.

The Soldier rested his metal hand at the small of her back, briefly, and it comforted her more than it should for her handler to see her distress. When she called 'Start!' the combatants rushed her little spider, and he waited until the last possible second to spin aside and knock two of their heads together, incapacitating them. Red Room agents hovered to the side, darting in and dragging the injured men into a pile out of the way as soon as they were too hurt to continue, whether unconscious or not.

Peter stuck to his training, managing to take out everyone that came at him while taking on minimal damage. He discarded any guns he was confronted with quickly, but he stole every knife someone pointed at him and kept it, turning it back on the unfortunate souls who threatened him. He always cut tendons, in a way that wouldn't make them bleed out, just make them useless in a fight.

She couldn't help the pride that burned in her chest as she watched him use moves she and her handler taught him to survive the Red Room's particular brand of having to prove your worth. They couldn't just take her word that he was worth everything.

When no more enemies remained standing, he relaxed, panting, and looked to her with a hopeful smile. She gave the tiniest shake of her head, letting him know that it wasn't over yet. He resumed his serious, focused expression. Turning away, he cracked his neck and stretched, getting back in the mindset of the fight. The door at the end of the room opened and a hulking man with silvery skin stomped out. Her eyes widened minutely. She had been expecting an enhanced opponent for Peter's final test, but not the disgraced Russian supersoldier Omega Red.

He looked the worse for wear: long blonde hair lank and matted, eyes sunken and cheeks hollow. He was still muscular, thanks to his serum and his mutation, but he wasn't well. His glowing red eyes landed on Peter and his lips curled into a smirk that looked... hungry. Peter sized him up, letting the man prowl closer. When he glanced at the man's empty hands not with relief, but wariness, she knew he must suspect something of Red's abilities.

"I am going to crush you and drink the marrow from your bones," he growled in a voice that snapped and crackled like a bonfire.

Peter only smirked, settling into a ready stance. "Actually, draining the juices from prey is a spider thing. Pick a better threat."

With a roar, he threw himself at Peter, who neatly leapt over him, slamming both feet into his back like a springboard, sending the man skidding to the ground as he landed lightly on the other end of the mat. Without waiting for Red to recover, he threw one of the knives he'd collected earlier, watching it skid off his skin.

The man laughed as Peter's eyes narrowed, looking for weaknesses. Red charged, flexible metal tentacles extending from his wrists. Peter didn't seem surprised, taking it in stride and rolling out of the way of a whiplike strike. He snatched up a baton that had been discarded earlier and used it to catch the next strike from a tentacle, wrapping it around the stick like a long noodle and then sharply yanking it to bend it faster than it could handle, making a sharp angle in it close to Red's arm. It could no longer retract, making it useless.

Red howled in rage and pain, lashing out and sending Peter flying back. Natasha heard ribs crack and only the Soldier's hand on her elbow kept her from shooting forward. She forced herself to relax her tense muscles. Peter had to do this himself or face eternal scrutiny. He could handle it; she'd taught him well.

Sure enough, he bounced right back, showing no sign of being in pain as he dodged another strike, this time jamming his knife in the little gap the tentacle emerged from, wedging it so deeply that the other tentacle was now useless as well. With both of his arms out of commission, Omega Red would not have lasted much longer anyway, but when Peter sent him to the ground on his back so hard that they all heard his breathing wheeze and rattle, it was clear it was over.

Red didn't seem to get that message, and he tried to struggle upwards only to find a knifepoint at his eye. He stilled, looking up at a stone-cold Peter as if seeing him for the first time. His expression was utterly blank, but his voice was nothing short of menacing.

"I'm guessing your eyes aren't as impenetrable as your skin, since they don't seem to be made of metal," he observed, leaning in close. His voice still carried as he threatened, "Are you going to yield, or do I have to blind you first, old man?"

Wisely, Red chose to tap out, and Peter climbed off of him gracefully, leaving the cleanup to the agents who collected all of his previous opponents. He turned to the superiors and bowed with a little smirk that was somehow dangerous. The old men all nodded their approval and withdrew to confer in whispers.

When they returned, Peter was given a passing grade, a uniform, and a new codename.

"Congratulations, Tarantula. You are the first successful graduate of the Wolf Spider program. You will continue your training under the Black Widow. Your first mission briefing is tomorrow."

"Thank you, sirs. I look forward to protecting the interests of the Red Room."

The superiors departed, pleased with that answer, and Peter took his new suit back to the room he shared with Natasha, accepting congratulations from all the agents he passed. None were quite as satisfying as the praise from the Winter Soldier, who was easily the second-nicest teacher after Natasha.

The second their door shut, she was fussing over his injuries. She wrapped his ribs, the only really bad hit, as she grilled him about his weird intensity in that last fight.

"You didn't sound like yourself," she worried, concerned that she was rubbing off on him in the worst way.

"Oh, I was just using the Scary Voice, like you," he explained proudly. "It made me seem all threatening and badass, but it also gave Mr. Rossovich an out to avoid worse injuries."

"How do you even know about him?"

"I, um, sometimes read files when I'm in the lab working on stuff," he admitted sheepishly. "I don't want them to be able to surprise us."

She kissed his temple and finished tending to his wounds. "You're very smart, little spider. You did very well today."

"I did, and I didn't have to kill anybody!" he whispered excitedly. "Plus! Now we get to go on missions together. I get to leave the compound with you!"

His excitement was catching and she smiled at him, stroking his hair. "That's right. I'm gonna show you the world, one mission at a time. We have a lot to catch you up on."

Peter couldn't stop smiling if he'd tried, and— well— she couldn't fault him for not trying too hard.


	3. Tarantula Hawk(eye)

Tarantula and the Black Widow went on their first joint mission in Illinois, of all places. It was a simple mission to steal some top-of-the-line facial recognition technology from Argonne National Laboratory, which was not far from Chicago. Peter was integral with his ability to stick to walls, easily infiltrating through vents that should have been too small and vertical for points of ingress and letting her in through the roof door after disabling security.

They got what they came for in a matter of minutes, but the pickup with their contact wasn't scheduled until tomorrow night, so they went to a hotel in Chicago posing as mother and son. It was the easiest lie she'd ever told. With a whole day to kill and fake ID's on their side, they decided to spend time in the city.

Peter was awed by all the tall buildings and shining skyline, though he was never unaware of the potential dangers and exit routes at street level. It reminded him of home with a pang, but it was still nice. They went to the Museum of Contemporary Art for Natasha and the Museum of Science and Industry for Peter. She took him to the Navy Pier, and he lit up at the rides and games available— 'Just like Coney Island!' according to him.

When he spotted an ice cream store, he practically vibrated in excitement. Seeing him shoot her the puppy eyes was the first time in a long time she'd seen him _really_ act like a kid. They got in line, and when they made it to the counter, Peter's eyes swept over the options eagerly. While he was looking, she ordered a strawberry cone for herself.

"What would you like, little dude?" the kind teenage girl at the counter asked him warmly. "Wanna try anything?"

"Can I have a bite of the Supermoon, the Churro, and the milkier chocolate, please?" he asked, pressing his nose against the glass case.

Natasha blinked at the slight Russian accent his English had picked up, though he didn't seem to notice. The worker did, though, and had narrowed her eyes, so Natasha smiled disarmingly and ruffled his hair, getting his attention so he didn't miss the cover story. It was too late for her to copy him and pretend they were Russian tourists, since she'd already spoken with a perfect Midwest drawl. She could hardly believe that he was so used to speaking Russian that it was more instinctual than his New York accent. Had she changed him too much?

"My husband and I just adopted Maksym from Ukraine," she explained lightly. "He's already so good with English, though. We're very proud."

Peter played along, shooting a matching disarming smile. "I know all the words, but the sounds are still different," he said, keeping the accent.

The worker cooed, buying it and his adorable pride in his language skills. He was quite the little actor, and Natasha was impressed.

"You're doing great, sweetie," the girl praised, handing over his samples. "Keep practicing and you'll get it."

His face lit up for every sample spoon, but the winner was chocolate. They took their cones to the nearest bench and watched the seagulls as they ate. She was mostly watching him, but he either didn't notice or, more likely, didn't mind.

"They should have ice cream in the cafeteria at the base," he decided, licking drips off his fingers. "I forgot how good it is."

"I'll bring it up next time I see the superiors," she joked, earning a tongue stuck out at her. "Tell you what, though. How about we get ice cream every time we can when we go on missions?"

He beamed. "Like a tradition?"

"Yeah," she agreed, sliding an arm around his shoulders and booping his nose with hers. "Every time there's time for ice cream, we'll get some."

They stuck to that tradition for all their missions. They grabbed a slice of normal life wherever they could. They explored the world, tried new foods, and just found time to sit outside in the sun and read or play games in local libraries. The Tarantula was as professional and dangerous as the Red Room expected, but she made sure that she let Peter Parker be a kid while still training him to survive in their world.

She never felt like she was doing enough for him, but she did what she could.

Peter and Natasha were eventually assigned to their longest mission yet: an undercover op in San Antonio to get classified intel from a diplomat, Gabriel Nuñez. They would be there for a month, at least. Natasha's cover was Peter's mother, and she would work on gathering intelligence with a job at the Spanish consulate while Peter befriended Nuñez's daughter at school and got himself invited over for a playdate so one of them could distract the family while the other one stole a flash drive from a hidden safe at the diplomat's house. They had an apartment and fake names, and they'd have to be good at pretending to be normal because Gabriel Nuñez had been targeted by spies before, making him wary. The idea was that he'd never suspect spies of involving a child in intelligence acquisition.

They got settled as Nadia and Perry Robbins and got Peter enrolled in the same private school as Lila Nuñez without issue. Natasha _might _have been forced to sabotage the other applicant to the file clerk job in order to secure her position, but at the end of the day, Stella Baskin could probably live with one coffee-ruined shirt and a little embarrassment in front of an interviewer who didn't think someone who had "forgotten" her resume could be trusted with keeping track of important documents. All in all, things progressed smoothly.

During their free time, Natasha and Peter enjoyed the River Walk and went to art museums. For once, she didn't turn anything into a lesson and just let Peter enjoy it, even if she had pointed out a _few _ways to figure out a person's recent history by paying attention to the details during people watching. That was just for fun, though. They also attended a ballet at the performing arts center. _Giselle _was lovely, and it made Natasha miss her time dancing with the Bolshoi as her cover. It was perhaps the most enjoyable mission they'd been on yet, allowing for plenty of down time to pretend to be normal people.

Peter was naturally charming, and Lila's interest in science made it easy for him to connect with her. They were fast friends, and she invited him over for a playdate on their first weekend in the city, sooner than they could have hoped. The kids did experiments in Lila's "lab" (a renovated spare guest bedroom) while Natasha took a "tour" of the house, flirting with the diplomat to distract him from the fact she was casing the place. It took two more playdates, spread out over three weeks, to locate the safe and get the drive from it. All they had to do now was keep their covers for another week, time enough for Natasha to get the supplementary files from the embassy office and replace the drive in Mr. Nuñez's safe with a duplicate from Best Buy.

It was their second to last day in the city, and Natasha swiped the paper copies of the digital files at work while Peter was at school. Feeling like she ought to celebrate Peter's hard work on his first longer-term undercover op, she swung by the ice cream cart on the way to pick him up from school. It was a decision that she couldn't have known would save her life— not to mention changing it forever.

~0~

Clint Barton had been assigned to the Black Widow's case as a back-burner priority for years. He was supposed to keep an eye out for news of her and try to build a profile of intelligence on her. It hadn't yielded much until recently, other than a sort of rivalry between spies.

He still didn't know her real name after all this time, and he'd only seen her face briefly, from a distance. She'd seen the light glance off his scope and smirked at it, winking and blowing a kiss before vanishing like smoke into the crowds of a Moroccan bazaar. He knew who she worked for, though he knew very little about the Red Room, and he knew how good she was at what she did, which was _very_ good. Up until recently, what he _hadn't _known was any way to find her or predict where she was going next.

It had been a game of cat and mouse, with him chasing her all over the globe and coming up just short, in a kind of deadly dance of who could find and eliminate whom first. Somehow, he'd always come out feeling like the mouse in their just-missed-her encounters. She had that effect on people.

He had worked his ass off trying to pin down her patterns, and he had noticed something changing recently. Before, she had always been alone, but now she seemed to travel with a partner. Small, agile, probably enhanced or outfitted with some serious tech. This addition was what made it possible to track her, because even though her reputation as the most ruthlessly capable assassin in the world protected _her_ from snitches, the same protection did not extend to her new friend. So he asked around, and he found out that the rumor mill placed them in the States, San Antonio. Well, the rumor mill was _one _informant kind of new to the game who seemed far too cheerful to possibly be aware that handing out this information was going to get him killed, but him being an idiot worked in Clint's favor. He could just have an agent warn the guy about informant protocol later, but first he had to track down his old nemesis before she slipped away again.

It had taken awhile to canvas the area for the Widow, but he eventually found her working at an embassy. He observed long enough to determine that she was stealing documents before following her via the rooftops. She finally stopped in a relatively underpopulated area, at an ice cream cart of all things. It felt a little weird to be taking out the Black Widow while she bought an ice cream cone, but he'd waited too long for this chance to pass it up. He drew back his bow, lined up the shot, and then hesitated when the vendor handed her a second ice cream cone.

He didn't know what about that made him stop. Maybe wondering who it was for made him think she could lead him to the mysterious new partner, or maybe he was just wondering what kind of person could be someone that the Black Widow would share her ice cream with. Either way, he relaxed his draw and followed her more instead. She walked up to a school and he tensed again, readying a shot. She hadn't been known to hurt children in the past, so it was unlikely that she was here to harm one of the students, but he couldn't be too careful when it came to kids.

She only stood there for less than two minutes before the bell rang and students began pouring out of the school. He was watching her face carefully through the scope, so he saw the moment her face changed expressions and he almost let go of the arrow out of shock. The Black Widow was smiling, very genuinely, at someone she spotted in the crowd. The grin bloomed across her face and she was positively beaming. It floored him so bad that it took a second to notice one of the kids breaking away from the herd to sprint straight at her, and that shock didn't get better when the kid tackled her at the waist in a hug, making her laugh and kiss the top of his head. He thought he read the kid's lips forming the words, "Hi, Mama." Clint couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He put the bow aside and hurriedly scrambled for the long-distance listening equipment. Once he had it going and tuned in, he put the scope back up to his eye without the bow. He watched her crouch down to the kid's level and hold out both cones to him, still smiling.

"Chocolate or strawberry?" she asked, lifting each one a little higher as she named it.

The kid scoffed, "As if you even have to ask." He then grabbed the chocolate one and took a massive bite of it.

The Black Widow stood up and said, "I'm told variety is the spice of life."

The kid arched an eyebrow in a way that oozed dismissal. "You know what's also a spice? Cocoa, and it's delicious enough to be better than variety."

"Cocoa isn't a spice."

"Agree to disagree. Besides, chocolate is objectively the best flavor! It's just the facts."

"Those are bold words for someone within striking distance," she hummed, suddenly bumping her ice cream cone against his.

"Oh ho! Do you wish to engage in combat?" he asked in a comically deep British accent, adopting an exaggerated fencing stance with the ice cream as the foil. "En garde!"

She smirked and copied him, pretending to sword fight with the ice cream cones, dancing backwards and dramatically avoiding strikes. Both of their scoops got hopelessly mashed and mingled, but they didn't destroy either of the cones or lose any ice cream. Before long, she surrendered by withdrawing her cone and licking it.

"I concede, but I think we both won because now we both have chocolate-strawberry ice cream," she declared, reaching her free hand down towards him.

He shook it like he was gracefully accepting victory in a gentleman's duel before switching hands and just holding her hand as she turned and walked him away from the school. Clint had a call to make. If the Black Widow had a kid, that changed things. He couldn't make that kid an orphan even if she'd done the same to others. If the Black Widow loved this kid as much as it looked like she did, that meant she wasn't an unfeeling killing machine, and that might change the way he interpreted orders to eliminate her as a threat.

Thinking quickly, he followed her to her home, and once he'd marked the apartment, he changed out of his tactical gear into a suit and tie. Approaching her would be easier if he didn't immediately look like someone sent to kill her. Besides, she knew that her rival from the past few years was an archer, so showing up with a bow might be a good way to get shot on sight. He knocked on her door with as much confidence as he could manage, trying to be ready for anything. He was not prepared for what he saw.

It opened to reveal a woman who looked both exactly how he remembered and nothing like he expected. She had her long red hair up in a messy bun with a stick through it, and was wearing black yoga pants and a maroon T-shirt that was loose enough to hang off one shoulder. It said "Girl with a great personali-tea" on it with a little smiling teacup beneath the words. She was barefoot and wearing a little black apron with ruffles, and she was looking at him with a curious but pleasant smile.

"Can I help you?" she asked lightly.

"I hope so, ma'am," he replied with his best charming smile. He flashed his fake CIA badge and continued, "My name is Agent Scully, and I'm with the CIA. Our intelligence has led us to believe that there's a dangerous Russian spy in the area, and we're hoping you'll be able to answer some questions for us."

He knew from the brief flicker in her eyes that she knew his badge was fake, and from her microscopic change in expression that she knew _he _knew she'd noticed. There was a calculation in her gaze as she stepped aside and let him in. He nodded his thanks as he walked by her. The kid from earlier was reading a book on the couch and shooting sideways glances at him. Instead of looking at Clint head-on when he lowered the book, the kid turned to the Black Widow.

"Mama, who's this?"

"This is Agent Scully. He's here to ask us what we know about Russian spies in the area," she explained. "I'm not sure how much help we'll be, but we can try."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs?"

"Ms. Nadia Robbins," she introduced, shaking his hand. "And this is my son, Perry."

Clint smiled and turned to the kid. "How old are you, Perry?"

He eyed Clint skeptically. "Old enough to know not to talk to strangers."

He had to chuckle at that, waving away "Nadia's" attempted apology for her son's rudeness. "No, don't worry about it. Clearly you've taught him good safety precautions about random men asking him questions. I get it."

She nodded, seeming pleased by his answer. "You can sit in the armchair, if you like. I'll join my son on the couch. Can I get you anything to drink?"

"I'm good, thanks." No poison coffee for _him_, no ma'am. He settled in the chair and took out an empty notebook, pretending to read over something. "If you don't mind, we'll get down to business. Have you seen anyone new in the neighborhood recently? Especially an intimidating woman traveling alone."

She shook her head, smiling apologetically. "Sorry, no. We're actually pretty new to the neighborhood ourselves. Just moved in a month ago."

"Place looks good so soon after a move," he remarked, raising a brow. "You two must have been some busy bees."

"The place came furnished," she replied smoothly, shrugging. "We didn't travel with much, so we didn't have a lot to unpack. It's easy to be tidy if you keep the clutter low."

He nodded, writing nonsense down. "Understood. So, if you haven't seen anyone new, have you noticed anyone behaving strangely? Coming or going at odd hours? Having a lot of scary-looking guests visiting? Carrying weapons?"

"Well, that covers a broad area, Agent Scully. Brenda down the hall has night school followed by a graveyard shift. Nico from the apartment below ours runs his palm reading business out of his home. And there are at least two police officers and a private detective on the first two floors alone," she listed. Her lips twitched with amusement. "Are any of _them _Russian spies?"

"Fair enough," he grunted, writing down more nonsense. "What about at work? Anybody there acting suspiciously?"

"Do you even know where I work?" she questioned casually. "You didn't know my name."

"Close enough to walk to," he remarked, nodding to the visible soles of her shoes by the door. "Judging by the wear patterns on your nice work heels. That means it's in the area, which means it could be a place of interest. Where _do _you work?"

"At the embassy," she answered. "I'm a file clerk. As for suspicious activity, the only activity that I've noticed happening at work that shouldn't be is the fact that my married boss is hitting on me." She rolled her eyes. "I don't suppose sexual harassment claims are your jurisdiction, Agent?"

"No," he agreed, frowning sympathetically. "One last question before I leave you to enjoy your evening... do you have any affiliation with the Russian intelligence sect known as the Red Room?"

He bore his eyes into hers and she stared back unflinchingly. Their gazes held for what felt like hours, and he wasn't sure what he was expecting to break it, but it certainly wasn't for her to turn away first and duck her head, biting her lip. Holy shit, was she seriously about to confess everything? He leaned forward in anticipation.

"I— I must confess, Agent Scully... that I do," she admitted, voice suddenly tinted by a Russian accent. "You see... my husband, he was a member of the KGB. His job was always very top secret, but he would sometimes tell me the more interesting work stories, knowing they would never leave our bedroom. One of them was about a program that trained young girls to become killers. I never knew anything beyond that, but one day, my husband disobeyed an order that he said had to do with this Red Room, and he was branded as a traitor. Then they—"

She cut herself off with a hand over her mouth, eyes welling with tears. She turned her head away and the kid put his arm around her and said something in Russian in a soothing tone. She clasped his hand and said something back, foreheads pressed together. He knew this _had _to be an act, but it was a convincing one— enough that he felt like he was intruding on a private moment of grief. Hell, he didn't even know that the kid was _actually_ her son, let alone if they were talking about his dead father.

She collected herself and looked back at him, rasping, "They killed my Alexei. I knew that they would come for us, make an example of our family, so we fled. Pyotr and I came here with new identities to start over, to hide. I was afraid to say anything in case you thought _I_ was the Russian spy you're looking for, but when you mentioned the name of the program my husband died over... I thought maybe you could help us, protect us if they've found us and sent someone after us here."

Damn, she was a good actress. He nodded convincingly, put the notebook away, and leaned his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers against his chin very seriously.

"Ms. Robbins— Nadia— I'm sorry to tell you this, but the woman who was sent here is an incredibly dangerous spy and assassin known as the Black Widow. Her skill is legendary. I myself have been chasing her for years to no avail. We don't even know her name."

She looked appropriately alarmed at that, drawing her son closer to her side. "Are you saying there's nothing you can do to stop her from hurting us?"

"It will be hard, but... I do have one advantage that she doesn't know about," he said conspiratorially.

She leaned forward, wide-eyed. "What's that?"

He drew his gun in a flash and had it pointed at her head in a heartbeat. He flashed her a cocky smirk. "I saw her face once in Morocco and I have a really good memory about faces."

The kid made a startled sound and sat up straighter. Nadia only smirked and raised her hands slowly. She was looking at him like he'd fallen right into her trap and it honestly had him a little worried that maybe he'd only _thought_ this was his idea.

"The archer," she purred, looking positively delighted. "I can't believe it's taken us this many years to get a face to face. I _knew _you never thought you had me fooled with that CIA badge from a costume shop and that _ridiculous_ fake name. Honestly, did you think that just because I'm Russian, I've never even _heard_ of the X-Files? It was cute that you picked the woman's name, though."

"Yeah, I don't know if you've seen the show, but she's the less crazy one and I like her better. Besides, _Gillian Anderson_, c'mon," he said without shame. "Nice to finally get in the same room with you. Thrilled I've lived this long into the encounter. This meeting is defying my expectations in a lot of ways, but the kid is definitely the biggest surprise."

"I'm Peter," he said helpfully. "I really don't like that you're pointing a gun at my mom."

"You're really his mom?" he asked skeptically. He saw the barest twitch in her eyebrows when the kid said 'mom,' like she wasn't expecting him to continue the charade. "I thought he was like, a junior Red Room agent or something. Heard they start them young."

Anger flashed across her expression, but not at him, oddly. She was looking slightly to the left of him, as if staring down some memory. "He is. He's also my son. I'm the only one I trust enough to train him."

"He killed anybody yet?" he asked, feeling cold at the possibility of an answer he didn't want to hear. The kid was, like, ten. Taking a life that young could really screw him up. Not to mention that Clint _really _didn't want to arrest someone who should be in elementary school.

"No," she said firmly, scowling. "And he won't, if I have anything to do with it."

"You're not setting the best example then," he observed, tilting his head at her. "Saw your handiwork on the Sao Paulo mess." He whistled low. "Damn near enough to give me nightmares even after all the bullshit I've seen on this job."

Her face twisted in pain, briefly. It looked a lot like regret, but she buried it so fast he could almost believe he'd imagined it.

"I don't want to talk about my past in front of my son," she bit out, glaring. "I would prefer you mind your language in front of him as well. And if it's not asking too much," she drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm, "I'd strongly prefer you not _kill_ me in front of him, either."

"Unfortunately, my assignment _is_ to kill you," he hummed. "Has been for years."

"Why all this talking then, beforehand? If you've got me where you want me at last?"

"Because you bought two ice cream cones," he answered honestly, putting down the gun.

She was baffled at that answer, but her kid took advantage of him relaxing and dove forward in a roll, popping up to snatch the gun from his fingers and then rolling backward, popping up in a perfect ready stance with the gun aimed at Clint's head. Now it was his turn to raise his hands over his head.

"Wow, that was impressive," he said honestly. "Nice moves, kid."

"Mama taught me everything I know," Peter said proudly, beaming. "You're gonna get your butt kicked now, but thanks for not killing my mom."

"You're welcome. Wait, wha—"

He suddenly found himself pinned to the ground by the throat, a knife resting under his chin exactly where the jugular vein was. He gulped, mildly stunned, and stared up at the Black Widow, who still looked like a mom relaxing at home while inches away from inciting his swift death. Today was a wild day.

"Speak," she commanded calmly, "and convince me to let you live. Explain yourself."

So he told her about tracking the Tarantula here, and finding her after three weeks of work and tailing her for most of today. He concluded with the ice cream stand. "I didn't know what you were doing with two ice cream cones, but I wanted to see the kind of person the Black Widow would buy ice cream for. Then I saw how you were with the kid, and I thought that the heartless murderer from the Black Widow stories, the inhuman shadowy hand of death, didn't match up at all with this woman play-fighting with a kid she'd bought ice cream for. So I decided to see if I had you all wrong, and if I could offer you a different deal."

"Peter, make sure the pirozhki don't burn," she called, before turning back to Clint and easing up on the pressure of the knife just a bit. "What kind of deal?"

"How about instead of me having to take you out— or, you know, you killing me and then having to avoid every schmuck after me who tries to take you out and probably killing them, too— I offer you a job? You defect, come work for SHIELD, and nobody has to be murdered?"

"You're offering me a _job_?" she asked incredulously. "With the American government?"

"Yeah," he agreed easily. "I mean, there would be paperwork and stuff, but I have the clearance necessary to make the offer."

"You're disobeying orders," she observed, in a tone that implied she was impressed.

"Think of it as making a different call," he countered. "Can't be a threat to the country you live and work in!"

She removed the knife from his throat and offered him a hand up. He took it, and she pulled him to his feet with considerable strength that left him stumbling. Her expression was thoughtful.

"I'm going to need time to consider it. Care to join us for supper?"

He looked to where Peter was setting a tray of little pies on the stove, and he would have been sorely tempted based on the food alone, never mind getting the Black Widow to betray the Red Room. "Is that what the delicious smell is coming from? Because if so, my answer is a hard yes."

"Sit at the table. I'll pour the tea. Think of what you want to say to make your case for why I should accept your offer."

He sat. He thought. He ate an incredibly delicious tiny pie filled with meat and some vegetables. It was like pot pie, but different and honestly better. He may or may not have moaned at his first bite. The tea was also good, even if he was more of a coffee guy. It was really strong, and tasted kinda like cherries. When dinner was finished and Peter had cleared the dishes, Widow folded her hands and leaned towards him across the table.

"So, have you thought of your argument?"

He nodded, wiping crumbs from his mouth with his sleeve. "I have. I think that no matter how you might have felt about the Red Room before, training Peter to do what you do has changed things. You don't want him to have to kill anyone, but if you stay where you are, he will. My best reason for joining SHIELD is that your son can stop being an agent and just be a normal kid. I _promise _not to say anything about Peter's training, and will back up whatever lie you decide on for why he was on this mission with you. You should come with me so you can make the kind of future your son deserves to live in."

"I will admit, it's a compelling argument," she hummed, furrowing her brow. "Truthfully... I have wanted to leave the Red Room since they asked me to teach Peter how to kill. If we simply leave on our own... we will be found, and killed or worse. With the resources of the American government behind us, it's more plausible that I will be able to keep Peter safe."

"We'll get our best people on the job of new identities and protection from hostiles," he assured her. "I don't know if this sweetens the pot, but this would be like a regular job. You'd have your own home, three weeks' paid vacation, benefits, insurance— including dental! Other than longer missions, it would be like a normal nine to five thing."

She nodded, considering. "I will have to discuss it with Peter. What we do is his choice."

She turned to her son and spoke in rapid-fire Russian, and he returned in kind. Clint knew a handful of Russian words, so he caught snatches— "what life do you want," "different risks," "parents," "my mother," "leave me," and "never, I love you." When they finished, they embraced, and then she turned back to Clint with a softer expression than she'd had since he knocked on her door.

"We accept. They'll never believe I'm dead if they recognize my signature while I'm working in the intelligence community, so it would be a waste of time to fake that. But we need to fake Peter's death or they'll never leave him alone."

"I'll make some calls," he said simply, pushing his chair back to rise. "What names do you want on all your new paperwork?"

They exchanged a look. "Natasha and Peter Romanoff," Peter answered. "What's your real name?"

"Clint Barton," he replied. "Nice to meet you both."

In the middle of one of these phone calls, he paused and asked, "Hey, can we have the info on that diplomat you were going to give to your old bosses?"

"Sure," she replied, shrugging.

"What was it even about?"

"Oh, Mr. Nuñez was selling passport numbers to identity thieves in the Lithuanian mob," she answered casually.

Clint blinked. "Okay, _that_ is definitely a thing we should have been on top of, thanks."

They whipped up a convincing body double of Peter for autopsy photographs and faked his death by confrontation with a rival black ops group to the Red Room. They also pinned the disappearance of the body on them, so nobody could verify that the corpse was a fake made of ballistics gel. The trackers in both their arms were removed and destroyed, and that was the last thread to cut in order to free them of the Red Room. Natasha and Peter left San Antonio on a private flight to New York, but the place they landed was _not_ JFK.

The helicarrier was gargantuan and high-tech, and Peter had to be tugged down the hall every few minutes because he would get sidetracked by some incredible piece of equipment that he _had_ to get a closer look at. Clint led the way down the length of the aircraft to the director's office. It would be an understatement to say that Director Nicholas J Fury was... underwhelmed by Clint's choice to recruit her instead of killing her.

"What the _hell_ were you thinking, Agent?"

"Sir, please— It's not like I could have just killed her in front of her kid."

"Yes, you could have, Agent Barton," he barked. "Kids are resilient. He would have gotten over it in a nice foster home somewhere after enough government-funded therapy."

Peter raked an unimpressed look over the man in the trenchcoat. "_These _are supposed to be the good guys?" he scoffed.

"Why is this toddler making moral judgments at me?" he asked Clint, and Clint shrugged helplessly.

Peter retorted, "Maybe if you presented some evidence of _having_ morals, I wouldn't be so quick to judge."

"No comment about the toddler part?" Fury asked.

"Dude, I know that the comeback of 'I'm ten, not four you bald bastard' is pretty weak," he snorted, rolling his eyes. "I didn't see the point of addressing it when my age is not the issue. The issue is that _killing my mom in front of me_ is a messed up thing to suggest, and that you're ignoring the fact that instead of performing a government contract kill, Clint gave you a valuable resource."

Fury crossed his arms. "Go on."

"My mom is the best spy in the world," he said proudly. "She's a legend. In your circles, her terrifying reputation is a _good_ thing. It gives you street cred, connections, and the power of fear. She's the most capable espionage expert alive, and that kind of talent can't always be taught. It's like in chess, but instead of just taking the other guy's queen off the board when you capture her, you get to add her to your ranks. Instead of just _removing_ a powerful player, Clint got her on your team. I think that's objectively better, don't you?"

Clint was really impressed at the kid's solid argument, and pretty grateful that he was using it to make Clint look good to his pissed off boss. Fury regarded Peter in silence for a moment before bestowing a rare smile on him and uncrossing his arms.

"You make a good point, kid. Alright, so maybe Barton's not an idiot."

"Thank you, Sir."

Fury ignored that and stared hard at Natasha. "But be warned of this— you're getting a second chance here, and there will not be a third. Got it? That means that if I catch one whiff of double-dealing or betrayal, you're dead. There won't be a trial or a plea deal or a prison sentence. If you're suspected of being a double agent, there will be an investigation, and then if it turns out you stabbed us in the back, you get killed. No compromise. No middle ground. Are we clear?"

"I have a question," Natasha replied.

"Yes, you can freelance for any allies or pre-approved neutral parties."

"No, that's not it, but thanks." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I was actually wondering what happens to my son if I die. He can't go back to Russia."

Fury nodded like she'd taken a step towards earning his respect. "Until and unless you meet someone else you wanna make a godparent, your partner is in charge of arrangements."

"Partner?"

"Barton. He recruited you, he keeps an eye on you," Fury explained.

She looked him up and down and seemed to be satisfied with what she saw. "You're decent with kids. You'll do."

"Gee, thanks," he huffed good-naturedly. "I'll do my best to make sure it never comes up."

She heard the sentence for what it was: a promise to watch her back so she could come home to her son, and she looked at him like she'd realized something important about his character. She nodded and thanked him quietly. He just shot her a small smile. Fury didn't have a lot of patience for genuine human emotion, so he cleared his throat and called attention back to him.

"You have quarters on board until such time as you find a place on the ground, preferably in the city," he told Natasha. "You start work on Monday, so enjoy the weekend. Someone may find you with more paperwork between now and then, so if you go down into the city, don't stay there the whole time. You're dismissed, Agent Romanoff."

"I'd actually like to keep a place up here even after I find my own. I'd like it if Peter could be somewhere with adults who will help him if he needs it while I'm gone on missions, not that I don't trust him to stay home alone," she added, glancing at her son.

"That can be arranged," Fury allowed. "Take a day to get familiar with the place. Barton can give you the tour, and he's a decent pilot if you want to go sightseeing tomorrow."

"Thank you, Director Fury," she said, dipping her head and leading their little troupe out of the office.

"Barton," Fury said, halting Clint for a moment. "If this all goes sideways, it's on you. You made yourself responsible for her, and I hope you know what that means."

"I do," he replied solemnly. "I don't think it'll be a problem, but if it is... I'll handle it."

Fury nodded, and he left, catching up to Natasha and Peter in a few strides. "So, I'll be your tour guide today!" he greeted in a chipper voice, slipping past them to walk backwards in front of them. "Anywhere in particular you'd like to start?"

Clint gave them a tour of the Helicarrier, cracking jokes and pointing out the best places to access the vents. Peter giggled several times. Natasha gave him a maximum of three reserved smiles. He'd still call it a partial win. Finally, he showed them to the sleeping quarters area, throwing open Natasha's door with a flourish.

"It isn't much, but it's not bad," he promised. "You'll be able to lock and unlock it with your key card when you get it Monday. As you can see, the stuff you wanted to bring with you is already here. You really weren't kidding about not having many boxes to unpack."

"We travel light," Natasha said, brushing past him. "Tomorrow, I want to look at schools, and then I can use Sunday to find a place near the one we choose."

"I think we can swing that." He shot her a thumbs-up. "Sleep tight. I'll be back to take you to breakfast in the morning."

"Can we get pancakes?" Peter asked brightly. "The mess hall at the Red Room _never_ had pancakes."

"Yeah, squirt. We can get pancakes," Clint replied, smiling. "I even know a place that does chocolate chip ones."

He was practically vibrating with excitement, and Natasha rolled her eyes, sighing, "Now you've done it. He'll be too wound up to sleep."

"Just cementing my place as the fun uncle early," he laughed, saluting. "Good luck with that."

He bailed out fast, snickering at the sound of Peter's excited rambling that faded out as he let the door fall closed. He went straight to bed and woke up at like midnight, and he actually felt a little guilty about maybe making it harder for Peter to sleep, and in a new place at that. So he got up and padded the short distance down the hall to Natasha's room. He raised a fist to knock, but stopped when he heard something through the door. He dialed up his hearing aids to listen better, and he could make out the sound of a pretty voice singing softly in Russian, and the sleepy yawns of a little boy.

It made his heart melt a little to imagine the world's most fearsome assassin singing a lullaby to her child. He also had to admit that she had a fantastic voice, a little raspy but perfectly on key. He stood and listened until her song trailed off into silence, and he heard her tell Peter goodnight. It was an incredibly sweet moment that he could _never, ever_ tell Natasha he'd spied on. He slipped back down the hall to his room and went back to sleep feeling better about how well they would settle in at SHIELD.

The next morning, he knocked on their door at eight. It opened immediately, revealing a fully dressed Natasha and a Peter still in his pajamas, hair sticking up every which way. He laughed at the sleepy squint the boy was making as he stumbled out of bed and rummaged in his suitcase. Clint also noted that only one of the beds was messed up, but maybe Natasha was just a stickler for making the bed the minute she got out of it?

"He's not a morning person," she explained, mirth in her eyes. "He gets ready quickly, though."

"I'm gonna have to get used to that," the kid mumbled, digging out a shirt and some cargo pants.

"Get used to what?" Clint asked. "Getting up early?"

"People knocking. It's weird," he grumbled, wriggling out of his pajama shirt and putting on the new one.

Clint didn't know what to say to that, so he tried, "Sorry to startle you. I just thought you'd want to get as early a start as possible when there are pancakes involved."

His face lit up and he was alert instantly, redoubling his efforts to shove his body into going out clothes. He managed to get dressed, including shoes, in under two minutes, only taking ten more seconds to run his fingers through his hair and instantly fix it. It was strange how normal he and his mom looked. They had perhaps accidentally matched outfits— dark pants and shirts in some shade of red— but they looked like regular people instead of people who'd grown up as spies. Natasha was even wearing a purse.

The illusion was shattered when Peter tucked throwing knives into two of his pockets and Natasha took that as a cue to double check her own, including the balisong in her purse. Oh, well. They were normal enough for New York, anyway.

"Ready for pancakes!" Peter declared, bouncing on his toes.

"Let's go, then," Clint laughed, leading the way to a spare quinjet.

They flew cloaked and parked it on a SHIELD-owned building so all they had to do was walk down one flight of stairs to reach the elevator and then the ground. Clint fell in on the other side of Peter and looked to Natasha.

"Where to first, troop?"

"Pancakes!" Peter cheered.

Peter got his pancakes, and Natasha was introduced to the finer points of American diner food. She got an egg white omelette like a killjoy, but she didn't try to make Clint or Peter eat anything healthy instead of delicious, so that won her back some points in Clint's book. She also acquiesced to try a bite of hash browns, which she seemed to like a lot.

"Just like Жареная картошка," she said, pleased.

"Uh..." he hummed, not sure how to respond since he had no idea what she said. "Good?"

"Fried potatoes," Peter supplied around a mouthful of pancakes.

"Ah. Yeah, that's basically what they are, just... shredded instead of sliced."

"It's good for the texture," Natasha decided, nodding. "I will have to try my hand at these at home."

"The base never had very exciting foods, so we try to eat something nice on every mission, and now that we're out, Mama really wants to learn to cook more things," Peter explained excitedly. "She's really good at it. Even if she wasn't, it would beat having borscht _all the time_." He rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Don't exaggerate," she said, ruffling his hair. "We only had borscht every week, not every day."

"_Twice_ a week, usually," he grumbled, ducking away and swatting at her hands. "I'm just saying your cooking is better."

"When did you even have time to learn to cook?" Clint asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, I had a long-term cover as a Russian housewife who had grown up poor, but had a chance to train at the Bolshoi," she began, shrugging. "They just implanted the backstory and all necessary associated skills in my head, so I know how to make all the traditional dishes."

Clint was deeply perturbed, but he tried to play it off like it wasn't _that_ weird or horrifying. "Huh. I had to go undercover as a diving instructor once and they only gave me a handful of one hour classes on how to not die while doing it."

"Well at least you succeeded in doing that much," she remarked with a twinkle in her eye. He could read the look under the look that said she knew exactly how he felt about the brainwashing thing, but she looked grateful not to have to get into it rather than angry for being judged, so yay. "Did you blow your cover by not knowing anything?"

"Not until it was time to arrest the guy, but yeah. He caught on when I called the mask a 'fancy snorkel,' I think."

Peter laughed at him. "That would do it."

Making their way out of the shopping district took longer than expected because they paused to buy some clothes for Peter to wear to school— ones that didn't look so much like tactical gear. He gravitated towards jeans and science T-shirts, and picked out one pair of red and blue sneakers. Clothes shopping t seemed to make him happier than it made most kids, and that was fair, since he likely hadn't ever been given much choice in what he wore. Clint carried the bags like a dutiful mall husband, just standing back and letting these two enjoy their first taste of freedom.

Peter came to a dead halt by the Lego store and actually pressed himself against the window at the front, starry-eyed. Clint came up beside him and crouched down to his level.

"You like Legos?"

He nodded vigorously. "I haven't been able to play with them for years, but they're the _best_."

"We can stop by after we find a place to live," Natasha said gently. "I know it's disappointing to wait, but there's not really room to build in the SHIELD quarters. Once we have a space of our own, you can go nuts at the Lego store and get every set your heart desires. Fill the whole apartment with Lego creations."

Peter grinned eagerly and accepted this with grace. "Okay. I've waited this long. What's a few more days?"

They moved on to looking at schools in the city, and Natasha had already done some research, so they had a whole list of schools to visit all over the boroughs. After about ten places that were just okay, they found the place that was perfect for Peter. It was a science magnet school in Midtown that went from sixth grade to high school, and it had decent security and excellent facilities. The teachers that they met all passed Natasha's rigorous examination, even if they looked a little scared at her intense staring and blunt questions. Peter seemed to take a real shine to the place, so it was decided.

They took the paperwork with them to lunch, Natasha filling it out and posing the occasional question to Clint while Peter ate all of his adult sized meal and stole some of Natasha's french fries, which she allowed graciously. She drew the line at milkshake theft and lightly slapped his hand away without looking up. They had Peter registered by afternoon, so they had the rest of the day to just explore the city. For some reason, Peter hesitated outside of Queens with a look between foreboding and longing.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Natasha assured him, stroking his hair. "I'm with you either way."

He shook his head and turned into her embrace, letting her hold him in the middle of the sidewalk. "I'm not ready yet. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, little spider. Don't be sorry." She kissed his head and then tugged his hand to lead him in another direction.

Clint didn't verbalize a question, just shot a look at Natasha. She murmured, "Bad memories. We don't talk about it." He left it at that.

They kept walking, and Peter's spirits gradually lifted. They finished off the day on a high note, and the following day of looking at apartments had no such disquieting moments. They found a nice but modest place for them that even had an extra room for Peter to make into a lab slash Lego room. Clint helped them move their minimal stuff in for moral support more than anything, and made them promise to bring him to the Lego store tomorrow when they went after work and school. He kind of wanted to go because Legos were cool, but mostly to see the look on Peter's face at the freedom to go wild in the Lego store.

"Do you think I'll do okay at school?" he asked Clint nervously. "Will the other kids like me?"

"Not all of them, but that's life, kid," he told him honestly. "The ones that matter will. The ones with good taste. You're gonna do great, Peter."

He hugged Clint at the knees, which made him smile. "Thanks. Look out for Mama tomorrow, okay?"

"Promise," he said, fist bumping him. "I look forward to hearing all about your day."

Peter nodded and darted off to his new bedroom to decide how he wanted to decorate it now that he could. Natasha stayed with Clint at the doorway, giving him a searching look.

"Thank you," she told him. "For being kind to Peter, and for giving us this chance. All I want is for him to have a chance to be a normal kid after all the bullshit he's been through. You did what most people in your position wouldn't have, and as much as I hate to admit it, I owe you. I have your back, too."

"Good to know," he said, offering a handshake.

She used it to pull him closer, and she asked in a barely audible murmur, "Do you really trust me?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted. "But I'm willing to give you a chance to let me learn to. I don't know what your word is worth, but I believe you deserve the opportunity to demonstrate it. Think of it as probational trust."

"I'll take it," she accepted. "I must warn you that my trust may be harder to earn simply because I haven't had much cause for it in my line of work."

"That's fair," he accepted, shrugging. "See you tomorrow."

She returned the sentiment and watched him leave, sort of wondering if she'd made a mistake in defecting to SHIELD, but mostly glad to finally have space to breathe. She was hopeful that this could be a second chance for them both, a chance for her to wipe the red from her ledger and for Peter to get a real childhood. She hoped, and it frustrated her that hoping was all she could do at the moment. But then she saw Peter smile at her from the doorway of his new bedroom and she thought that maybe hope could be enough for now.


	4. First Days and New Ways

Natasha's phone rang while she was in the middle of fighting one of the many green-helmeted bastards from some kind of racist organization called 'the Sons of the Serpent' which was pretentious as hell and also way too cool of a name to be wasted on the edgy boyband remix of the KKK. She snapped the idiot's wrist when he aimed a laser pistol at her, knocking him out by using her Widow's Bites to zap him until he foamed at the mouth, freeing her up to sandwich the phone between her ear and her shoulder before launching at the next opponent.

"You're taking a personal call _now?_" Clint screeched, scattering a group of enemies like ninepins with a minor explosive arrow.

"It's his first day," she argued, leaping onto the shoulders of a taller, more muscular Serpent, strangling him with her thighs while shooting two-handed at more idiots in dumb hats. She stabbed the answer button the second she had a free hand, answering in breathless Russian, "Hey, little spider. How was today?"

"_It was awesome, Mom!"_ Peter enthused. "_We got to do our own experiments with magnesium with tinted safety goggles and everything. And it was chicken nugget day, and I made a new friend!"_

"Already?" she cooed, twisting her hips sharply to more firmly wedge her leg against the man's windpipe. "See? I told you that you'd find someone with taste. Any trouble?"

"_Well, one kid was being kinda mean, but then this really pretty angry girl reminded him that everybody was the new kid at some point, and how would he feel if somebody made fun of his mom's accent like he made fun of mine? Flash shut up after that."_

She jumped smoothly off the unconscious, falling body of the big one without breaking stride as she roundhoused another in the face. "Flash? What kind of parent names their child that? I'll give you some tools to handle little menaces like him after I get home. And who is the girl? She sounds very _special_..." she teased.

"_Flash's real name is Eugene,"_ Peter corrected. Stammering, he added, "_Michelle is her name, but she says her friends call her MJ. I wanna be her friend."_

"I'm sure you will," she assured, sliding under a punch and tasering a Serpent in the back of the neck. "Tell me more about your other friend, and what the new school is like."

"_Well, Ned is really nice and even offered to give me his pudding cup when I dropped mine, but I shared instead. He likes robots, too, and he seems super smart about computers. He invited me over to his house to watch _Star Wars _Friday night, and I haven't seen the movies, but I think I'll like them! Can I go? Pretty please?"_

Peter was excited, and she already could picture his little hopeful face. It made her smile as she swung a police surplus baton at the kneecaps of two more serpents after she stole it off the first one. He already had a real playdate, his first since being taken by the Red Room that wasn't for a mission. She was so proud of her baby.

"That's wonderful, sweetheart," she praised as she cracked a Serpent's helmet in half with one downward swing of the police baton. She was really liking the satisfaction of swinging a stick at something. She'd talk to SHIELD about updating her weapons at debrief. "Of course you can go. Just make sure you get me his parents' contact information first. Did you want to invite Ned to the Lego store today?"

"_Really? That would be awesome!" _he cheered, the sound bolstering her through a brief tussle with one of the slightly less stupid Serpents who had stolen her baton back. She used it to dislocate his elbow, punching him in the throat when he screamed because the noise was interfering with her phone call with her son. "_Thanks so much, Mom!"_

"Of course, baby," she replied with a mild grunt as she took a hit to the gut from a bad guy that was quickly kicked hard enough to send him flying through an interior wall. "Any other big news from today?"

"_Hmmm,"_ he thought. Natasha took advantage of the pause to crack the skulls of two opponents together and then toss them into some of the last ones dumb enough to still be advancing instead of retreating. "_I really liked biology class today. Did you know that the blue-ringed octopus is not only super good at camouflage, but it also has incredibly deadly venom?"_

"I actually did learn that in _Intro to Poisons_ when I was a teenager," she admitted, flipping a man over her head and stomping on his ribs. "I liked the idea of being able to blend in perfectly with my surroundings. Disappearing in plain sight is my favorite skill. What else did you like about school?"

"_Um, recess was really fun. I did a flip off the monkey bars that the other kids thought was really cool but it made a teacher yell at me," _Peter pouted. "_My locker actually has a lock on it, which is nice. I actually feel like people here can't get to my stuff. Gym was boring since I had to pretend to run slow, but we get to do the scooters on Wednesday. I missed you a lot, but I still had fun."_

Her heart clenched at that. "I miss you too, little spider." She shot tasers at the last remaining Serpents who were trying to run away, making them fall to the ground, twitching. She moved to start her cleanup sweep for any stray agents or intel. "I'm glad you had such a good time today. If you're still feeling restless about not running, we can dance later. I found a studio down the street that has free practice hours in the evenings."

"_I could use a little bit of a challenge,"_ he agreed. "_How soon are you gonna be home?"_

She glanced around at the several piles of moaning or unconscious Serpents. "Should only be another hour. I'm still in the city, just finishing with some trash pickup here and then I have debrief."

"_Okay. See you soon!"_

"See you soon, little spider," she echoed, making a kiss noise with her lips before hanging up. She glanced up to see Clint staring at her and she raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"That was just... unbelievably sweet but weird," he answered, shaking his head. "You just held a casual 'how was your day, sweetie?' conversation while beating the shit out of these racist pricks. I can't _not_ be impressed, even if I understood almost none of it."

"Less gawking, more hustle. The sooner we tie this up, the sooner we can get to the Lego store." She added, "Peter's bringing a friend."

"Oh, sweet," he remarked, tapping at his communicator. "I'm happy for him."

They wrapped things up with the Serpents and picked Peter up from school in their SHIELD-issue vehicle. He was standing by a portly kid in a hoodie, chatting animatedly. He dashed over when they beeped the horn, tugging his new friend by the hand. She rolled down the window so he could see it was her and he beamed.

"Hi, Mom! This is my friend Ned I was telling you about."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Romanoff," he greeted politely. "And... Mr. Romanoff?"

Clint laughed so hard he got choked but Natasha only smiled and shook her head.

"Maybe if he plays his cards right," she joked. "This is Clint, a friend from work. You can just call me Natasha, Ned."

"Okay Ms. Natasha," he agreed. "Thanks for letting Peter come over on Friday! And for taking us to the Lego store. Oh!" He dug in the pocket of his hoodie and produced a sticky note that he handed to her. "Here's my mom's number, and she wants you to text her so she has yours."

She went ahead and did so, typing it in one-handed. "What's your mom's last name?"

"Leeds!"

"Thank you." She shot Mrs. Leeds a quick message with her name and an offer to have Ned stay for dinner. "Hop in the back and put on your seatbelts."

The boys eagerly scrambled into the backseat and complied, and after the herculean feat of finding parking in New York, they entered the Lego store. Natasha and Clint chatted about work things in Spanish, one of their few shared foreign languages, while they followed behind the two eager fifth graders at a more sedate pace.

Over the years, she'd been privileged to see Peter relax and act like a kid in only small moments. He'd get excited about a Pikachu costume on a mission in Tokyo and excitedly tell her about Pokemon for a minute before a delivery driver dropped the back gate of a truck a little too hard and he'd flinch at the bang and immediately scan for the gunman on high alert. Now, he was relaxed and having fun in a toy store with a new friend he made on his first day of school. It made her really happy to see him getting to be a normal kid, and she kept her guard up enough for both of them so he could have this.

"You seem happy," Clint remarked with a little smile.

She pondered whether or not to respond to that but ultimately decided to try honesty for once. "I like to see him really getting to act his age," she admitted in an undertone. "He deserves to smile like that all the time."

"He's a great kid," he agreed, observing Peter helping a younger child reach the princess castle playset from a shelf he had to jump a little to reach. "You did a great job raising him."

"I don't deserve much of the credit for that." She pursed her lips and glanced sideways at him. "Peter started out good. I just kept the Red Room from ruining that as much as I could manage. It doesn't feel like enough."

He looked at her with an unreadable expression, and his tone shifted to something like awe, but softer. "You are... nothing like what I expected when we were chasing each other around the seedy parts of the world," he murmured.

She rolled her eyes and put up her walls again. "I love my kid. Don't read too much into it, and don't forget who I am. I've tried to kill you multiple times."

"Likewise. I'll try not to hold it against you," he retorted with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Mom! They have a Lego of the Snow Queen!" Peter called excitedly.

She drifted closer and peered at it, frowning. "This is some kind of Disney version. They forgot all the good parts. Where's the robber girl? Where is the conjurer? Where is the magic raven?"

"Yeah, they basically made it not the same at all, it looks like. But the ice castle is cool!"

"I caught that pun," she informed him, ruffling his hair. "You can get the abominated version of the best fairytale ever if that's what you want."

"The Millennium Falcon has more pieces. I don't know if I'll like the movies yet but I probably will, _plus_ I can probably figure out how to make it fly!" he thought out loud. "If I get some of the ones where you make your own characters, I could make the real version of the Snow Queen."

"Get both," she said easily. "No sense in starting from scratch on the ice castle."

He thanked her with a hug and went back to exploring with Ned. They left with enough Lego to take over a good portion of the living room— though a couple of the sets were things Ned had looked at longingly because he didn't have enough allowance for them that Peter was planning to sneak into Ned's backpack before he went home.

Ned was a very sweet boy who helped her and Peter make dinner, interested in learning about how to make pirog and blackcurrant mors. Clint observed and helped by setting the table, to give the boys plenty of space to help— too many cooks in the kitchen and all that. Natasha showed them how to carefully cut vegetables— though Peter already knew how to use a knife safely in multiple contexts— and knead and crimp the dough. She talked about the traditions behind it as she went and some of the information was even new to Peter, who was always delighted to learn things about Russian culture.

Dinner was lovely, Peter successfully tucked the gifted Legos into Ned's bag without him noticing, and Natasha formally met Mrs. Leeds when they took him home. Clint had parted ways for the night to return to his own apartment. Arrangements were made for Peter and Ned to have a sleepover that weekend, and he fell asleep in the backseat on the way home. Natasha carried him up to bed and tucked him in, brushing his hair out of his eyes tenderly.

"Goodnight, little spider."

The day had been a total success on all fronts, and it gave her hope that this 'turning over a new leaf' thing was really going to work out. Nobody had died at her hand today and even though nobody but Clint could look her in the eye yet, she didn't seem to have enemies at work so far. Maybe the new start would be good for both of them.

~0~

The weekend brought with it her first out-of-city mission, so she simply texted Mrs. Leeds and asked if Peter could stay another night, pleading a sudden work trip. The boys were ecstatic, and when she dropped Peter off at school that morning, she kissed him on the forehead and told him to be good. He wished her luck on the mission.

"I'm too good to need luck," she teased, winking.

He laughed and hugged her tight. "Take some anyway just in case. Love you."

"Love you too, Peter," she replied, squeezing back.

Any lingering good feelings from that goodbye evaporated during the mission briefing. She sat across from Nick Fury and stared down at the photograph of the man she was being sent to kill. Ivan Petrovitch. One of her old handlers. She kept her face expressionless as she scanned the rest of the file.

"There a problem, Romanoff?" Fury drawled.

A test of loyalties, then. A week in was honestly more time than she'd expected, but she would hesitate to call that a kindness. Apparently the offer to avoid killing people was only on the table for Peter. That was fine. She had enough blood on her hands that a few more drops would barely be noticeable. If she'd been stupid enough to hope that the Black Widow could stop being an assassin, well. That was her own fault. She should have known better than to believe she'd be able to do more than choose whose lies she was telling, whose hit list she was checking off. What else was she good for aside from being the sharp edge of somebody's knife?

"No problem, sir," she replied smoothly, no hesitation. "I agree that taking him out would be a blow to his trafficking ring. His second in command got the position through nepotism and is an imcompetent oaf, so it'll be easy to flip him."

Fury nodded. "Good. Barton, Romanoff, make it happen. Do your reading on the plane."

They both finished their folders halfway through the ride, and silence prevailed until Clint broke it.

"You okay?"

"Fine," she replied, shrugging. "I'm used to this kind of work."

"But taking out someone you actually knew?" he prodded gently.

"Never made a difference in the Red Room." She tilted her head at him. "Remember how I said you shouldn't lose sight of who I am?"

"Yeeees," he drew out warily.

"The process of elimination for who got to become the Black Widow out of the twenty-eight girls in the program wasn't test scores or favoritism. It wasn't sparring sessions. Every so often, they would pit us against each other in games of survival. Half of us would get to live— but only if we killed the other half."

"_Jesus_," he huffed with feeling, wincing. "And this was when you were a little girl? You were killing other little girls? Your friends?"

She shrugged. "For one thing, we never really got to be kids. Did my first kill when I was six. And yes, but we didn't have much of a chance to make friends in a way that mattered."

Natasha expected disgust, horror, anger. She expected Clint to recoil from her and finally see the wolf under the red hood. She didn't expect eyes filled with compassion and a soft hand on her shoulder. He looked at her without a trace of the rebuke she anticipated.

"Can I hug you? Because I think it would make us both feel better."

"I don't understand," she admitted, tongue feeling thick in her mouth. "I didn't tell you that to make you feel bad for me."

"No, you told me that to remind me of the monster I'm supposed to see, but here's the thing: I don't see that." He looked into her eyes and with the most earnest tone she'd ever heard, he insisted, "I see a woman who has been through some serious shit. I see someone who has made the best choices she can given her circumstances. You don't believe me; I can see it in your face, but answer me this: could a monster have raised a son like Peter? Because I think the one thing we can agree on is that he's _definitely_ not evil."

She could only nod. "He's the best part of my life. And... no hug. We're not there yet. But thanks. I mean it, though. The fact that I love my son doesn't mean shit about the kind of person I am otherwise, especially on the job. I have a particular skill set and I didn't much care who I used it for or _on_ till you brought me in. I earned my reputation as the deadliest assassin in the world honestly. I am ruthless, cold, and have a perfect record of completed kills."

"I've seen your work, a lot of it firsthand. Just because I'm not treating you like a monster doesn't mean I've forgotten who I'm talking to. You and I have passed each other like ships in the night for years, so I already know what your aftermath looks like." He let go of her shoulder and touched her hand briefly before withdrawing. "What I'm interested in now is getting to know _you_."

She hummed noncommittally. "Might be harder than you think. Sometimes I'm not sure I know myself."

He smiled softly. "Then it's something we can do together."

A lesser woman would have blushed with Clint Barton looking at her like that and speaking so sweetly. Natasha only gave him a brusque nod and returned them to silence, though this one was a little more tender than the first— like a fresh bruise.

She got close to Ivan with a cover, a young woman looking for a visa to a Western country and willing to work it off however she had to. Of course the minute she was in the room with him, the cover failed. He recognized her immediately with a look of shock and bewilderment.

"Natalia?"

She was on him in an instant while Clint swept in after her and took out the security in the room, having been clearing out the other people on site just a few steps behind her. She only had to dislocate the arm of the man who'd been escorting her and then she was fighting Ivan, who was good, but not on her level in the slightest. She had him on his back against his own desk in under a minute, a letter opener under his jaw at the jugular.

"We thought you were dead— or at least seeking revenge for the death of your little pupil," he murmured, barely moving his mouth. "Now you are with the Americans."

She maintained the cover story in case there were unseen ears. "With Tarantula gone, there was nothing for me at the Red Room. The idiots who killed him will suffer exquisitely, but I need cash first. They made an attractive offer and I took it. No hard feelings, but you're my entrance exam."

He opened his mouth, likely to plead for his life, but she simply jammed the weapon through his throat, stepping out of the way of the spray so hardly a drop of blood touched her. He gurgled his last breath, and seemed to be trying to mouth "_malyshka_" before he slumped to the ground with the light gone from his eyes. Clint stepped up behind her and made a noise at the back of his throat.

"Are you good?"

"That might be the problem," she hummed, turning to him with a blank expression. "I didn't really feel anything at all. I used to call him Uncle Ivan, you know. But the job's the job. He was a box to check off and I checked it."

"We need to do a sweep and then lean on the second in command," he nudged. "I let any of the girls I found on site go."

She nodded. "Let's clean up here and get out."

They had the second-in-command by the end of the day and Natasha didn't have to do more than raise an eyebrow before he caved. The next day was mostly consumed with overseeing the dismantling of the human trafficking ring and gathering data on all of the partners to target as well as any competition that might try to step into the void Ivan left. She texted Peter with the secured line to check on him and hear about his weekend, relieved that he was far away from all this. He'd seen her with blood on her hands enough times already.

Clint somehow managed to get a portable DVD player and the box set of the original Star Wars trilogy at a hole-in-the-wall movie store and they watched the films on the plane ride back from Russia. She wanted to be able to understand and relate to Peter's interests since he seemed so excited about it. The Storm Troopers' horrendous aim bothered her too much to enjoy any of their fight scenes— _this _is the galaxy's most elite fighting force?— but she liked the rest of it. Leia's hairstyles reminded her of the ballet.

"My one complaint other than the terrible shots in the clone army is that it's obvious Luke and Solo should have ended up together," she declared as the credits rolled on the final film. "Their body language _screams_ intimacy and they have a natural chemistry that outstrips Han and Leia's. The studio could only be motivated by cowardice."

Clint laughed so hard he nearly choked. "You know what? You're absolutely right."

"Of course I am."

Coming back to New York and folding Peter into her arms when she picked him up from the Leeds' washed away the grimy feeling the mission had left on her. She was holding her son again and all was right with her world.

~0~

Clint continued to surprise her as they worked together. He treated her like a friend and an equal, and she found herself willing to trust him more and more as time went on and missions stacked up. They both saved each other's lives more times than they could keep track of, but that wasn't really what made them friends. It was all the little moments, the quiet gestures.

Clint wasn't the best field medic, but he was always good at patching the emotional wounds. When she was haunted by her inability to save a child placed in harm's way by a terror cell, he didn't bother with platitudes. He simply sat with her on the ugly motel comforter and handed her a bottle of plum wine and a little red box of dark chocolates with cinnamon. He'd noticed her favorites without her saying a word, and she partook of them slowly but gratefully.

"Nothing I say will make it better, but I'm a stubborn bastard, so I'm gonna try anyway," he began, scooting close enough for their thighs to be pressed together. "You already know we can't save everyone, and you're expecting me to tell you it's not your fault. And it isn't. It doesn't fix the guilt to hear that, though. Only thing for it is to keep moving forward, and to never stop trying to save the next person, and the next one after that. You ever wanna talk, I'm here. You just wanna sit quietly and drink and maybe have me ramble on about nothing in particular, that's fine too."

"Does it really help?" she asked after a long pause and a longer sip of wine. "Moving forward?"

He scrunched his forehead and nodded, really thinking about his answer and trying his best to be honest— a difficult feat for either of them.

"The minute you give up trying to save everyone is the minute you lose hope, and hope's the only thing keeping anybody going. Most of the time, you're not gonna be able to protect them all, but sometimes you do. Those are good days, and we have to push through a lot of bad ones to get to the good ones."

"Giving up gets you killed in our line of work," she agreed, letting her head fall back against the padded headboard with a quiet _thunk_. "I suppose that would extend to giving up on having good days."

"Exactly." With deliberate slowness— never taking his eyes off her face so the barest twitch of an eyebrow would tell him if she wanted him to stop— he looped an arm around her shoulders and tightened it in a hug, leaning his cheek on her head. "You still have a heart, after everything. Don't let failing take that away from you, even if you only keep it beating to spite the bastards who hurt you in the first place." He smiled when that elicited a chuckle, closing his eyes. "But take it from me— there are a lot better reasons to just— to keep _trying_, you know?"

He didn't see that she was looking directly at his profile when she murmured, "Yeah. I know."

That was the mission that really sealed it for Natasha— their partnership. She trusted him with her life but that was honestly step one, the bare minimum. She trusted him with Peter, which was a lot harder to say about anyone because she loved that kid more than anything.

Yet perhaps the most difficult thing was trusting Clint with _herself_: the broken-open places, the bloody edges, the sharp, glittering parts of her that were dangerous and secret and as murky-dark as volcanic glass. He knew things about her that nobody else did. Her regrets, her past, her nightmares. He knew what kept her awake, as well as a top three list of ways to help her back to sleep. He was two of them. Peter was the third.

Beyond work, beyond friendship in the way Americans tended to use it, Clint had become a part of her life that was so essential that it wouldn't seem like her life anymore if he wasn't in it. He was one of her cornerstones. He dropped by the apartment at random for dinner, took her along to his weekly bar trivia (and made the mistake of inviting her to his monthly poker game only once), and took part in Peter's milestones too.

He was the one responsible for most of the traditions for Peter's birthday, having been outraged that it had been years since he'd celebrated it.

"What do you _mean_, it's not a big deal that you're turning eleven?!" he'd exclaimed so violently that half his tea sloshed into the nearest wall. He got up to clean the spill under Natasha's stern gaze as he continued to rant. "Of course it's a big deal! This is when you start doing tween stuff for older kids, the last important birthday until you turn fifteen and get your learner's permit."

"I've been able to drive for like a year," he pointed out. "I drove a tank through a ballroom once."

"A dope story for later, but don't try to distract me!" He slapped both hands against the table and posed like a general in a movie at the war room table about to pitch his gutsy but genius plan. "We're doing this properly. Thank God you mentioned it with enough prep time to actually throw something together."

"You have a maximum of four hours until it's officially Peter's birthday," Natasha pointed out neutrally.

"A tight timeline to be sure, but I've done a lot more with even less time," he mused, stroking his stubble like it was a real beard.

"Like that time it only took you two minutes to utterly destroy our covers and nearly get us killed in Portugal because you made a princess so mad she threw an entire bottle of champagne at your head and it ended up setting fire to the butler's eyebrows and two tapestries—?"

"No, not like that," he interrupted with a cough. "Like fun things. Party things."

"Okay. I have never planned a birthday party before, or been to one where I wasn't pretending to be someone else for nefarious purposes. You can take point on this one."

"Hey, you made my tenth birthday pretty special!" Peter argued. "It wasn't _technically_ a party—"

"It was a mission where I got you ice cream cake and let you replace a stockpile of white supremacists' weapons with defective paintball guns you stole from a factory dumpster," she observed. "Fun, yes. A birthday party? No. Thank you for being sweet about it though."

Clint regarded them with wide eyes, but shook off the surprise that he honestly shouldn't feel anymore around the Romanoffs. "That honestly sounds very cool, but I firmly believe you ought to experience a regular eleven year old birthday party for context if nothing else. If you hate it, we can always go break up a gang or something next year— as long as your mom says it's okay."

"It would be educational as well as excellent exercise," she mused. "So if that's what Peter wants for his twelfth birthday, I'm in."

"Just leave everything to me and I promise it'll be fun." Clint put his hands on his hips and nodded decisively. "Okay, I think I know enough about things you like to get this right, but I'll need to steal your mom for a bit for part of this."

Peter regarded him in amusement. "Mom doesn't go anywhere she doesn't want to, but if you're asking for _my_ permission to leave me languishing here on my own, you can have it."

"Ah! But you wouldn't be on your own!" He pointed at Peter as if he'd just made an excellent argument in Ace Attorney. "Because the best birthdays require friends! You should do something with Ned and MJ while Nat and I take care of party planning."

"Nat?" she echoed, letting him sweat for a moment at her warning tone before she smiled. "I like it."

"Glad the nickname risk paid off," he exhaled into a nervous laugh. "Okay, some things will be a surprise, but we're doing waffles at home for breakfast— don't worry, I'll get the waffle maker— and then you'll be with your friends until we get things together here, and we will party until we drop."

"I'm apprehensive, but honestly looking forward to seeing what you come up with!" Peter bounced in his seat excitedly.

"I am the king of fun!" he boasted, puffing out his chest. "Trust me, this is gonna be an epic birthday."

The next morning, Clint brought over the waffle maker and a couple of ingredients he wasn't sure they'd have, like mini chocolate chips and fresh strawberries. He showed them the recipe one of his foster moms had taught him while Nat fried the bacon.

"The secret is a bit of orange zest and nutmeg," he said with a tone of imparting profound wisdom. He smiled and ruffled Peter's hair. "And love."

He beamed, and Clint was happy he hadn't some off as too corny. Natasha touched his shoulder affectionately as she passed behind him to grab a plate and paper towels. A pleasant tingle ran up his spine and he shot her a smile as he turned his head slightly to follow her movement. He was really lucky, he knew. He couldn't have dreamed of having this a year ago.

He wasn't _completely_ lacking a social life before he met the Romanoffs, but his lifestyle made it hard to make many close friends and keep them. Off the job, there was too much to hide from people. On it... there was a lot to lose. Aside from that, most SHIELD agents with enough clearance to know he'd been a criminal before he became an agent very transparently didn't trust him. It was something he had in common with Nat at least, another way they understood each other.

Sure, Laura and his niece and nephew were wonderful, but he couldn't see them much way out at the farmhouse with work being how it was. He'd lost Barney long before he died— at least partially because Clint had lost _himself_ first— and without his brother, Cooper and Lila were his only blood family. But this— breakfasts and movie nights and sparring sessions and all the quiet moments with Nat and Peter— this was family, too. His family.

He loved her, had loved her more every minute since he first looked up at her face with her pinning him to the floor, absolutely certain he'd been right to see something worth saving in her as she pulled the knife away from his throat. He showed her this in dozens of small ways. He tried to make every look, every gesture, every time they held each other up when the ground crumbled beneath them into a silent love letter pages and pages long. He only hoped she could read it. They'd posed as lovers time and again for covers, but he yearned for it to be real... someday. And yeah, maybe he and Nat would never be, you know, a _thing_, but this was enough. More than enough.

The object of his affections herself broke him out of his sappy thoughts by nudging him with her elbow and smirking at the first successful waffle to come out of the waffle maker. "Well, it _is_ shaped like hearts."

"Eh, I bought it cheap off my Norwegian neighbor," he said with a shrug. "All their waffles look like that."

"I like it," Peter declared, around a mouthful of one of the heart-shaped waffle segments. "You're a much better cook than I thought you'd be."

He looked affronted, so Nat pointed out, "We have seen you drink coffee straight from the pot while it was hot enough to scald your throat. You didn't make a good impression about your skill in the kitchen."

"Desperation for caffeine can drive a man to extremes, Nat." He shook his head sorrowfully, pouring more batter on the iron. "Entirely different circumstances. I spent a lot of my formative years without a kitchen, but I cook a mean campfire meal. Nonetheless, there are still a few things I know how to do with a real stove."

"You learned how to cook outside?" Peter asked, tilting his head.

"Mm-hmm," he hummed, slicing up some of the strawberries while the waffle cooked. "Ran away to join the circus when I was about your age. That's where I learned to use a bow."

"Cool," Peter breathed, grinning. "I've only been to the circus, like, twice, but I loved the acrobats and knife throwers the most."

"You tried to pet the tiger," Nat pointed out with amusement.

"He was a good kitty!"

Breakfast was a hit, and Clint and Nat dropped Peter off at the Natural History Museum where his friends and Mrs. Leeds waited. Nat slipped him some money for lunch and kissed his temple before he darted off up the stone steps, lingering until she saw him pass safely through the front doors. Then Clint whisked her away to a surprise destination to shop for gifts, being very cryptic about where they were headed.

"Clint, if we're going to a Target or something, please just tell me now."

"Nope! We're going to my old gadget guy from before I stopped being freelance," he said with a smirk. "I'm picking up a pre-order and you're looking for something a little more sophisticated than a 'my first chemistry set' because your tiny genius is way beyond that stuff."

"That's very thoughtful." She watched him from the corner of her eye as they walked. "Thank you for trusting me with this."

"Spies may trade in secrets, but friends share things with each other." He looked at her meaningfully and took her hand. It was progress from even six months ago that she let him. "You're my partner, Nat. There are very few secrets of mine I haven't told you, and those are just because I haven't gotten around to it yet."

"You're remarkable, Clint Barton," she remarked with a soft expression. "I trust you too."

They found his gadget guy in a not-too-seedy back alley in Brooklyn, a man named Aaron Davis. Not the most talkative, but professional. Something Nat appreciated. He smiled when she mentioned wanting an inventing starter kit for her son and then opened up, like the sun emerging from behind the clouds.

"I got a little nephew. He's barely started walking but I can already tell he's gonna be great. If my stick-in-the-mud brother keeps him in school, he'll wind up smarter than me," he said with pride. "It's good to get your boy started in this stuff early, if he's interested. I got just the things."

She left with a little bag full of different tools and materials that Aaron put together, and Clint had a much smaller box that she eyed with curiosity as he put it in his pocket. He didn't seem to notice, already leading her off to the next thing on his list. He was holding her hand again and she declined to draw attention to it unless he noticed first.

"Okay, _now_ we go to Target to get real gift wrap and stuff, plus decorations."

"Can I know what you got him or is it a surprise?"

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, it's kind of practical and boring so I'll also pick up a nerf gun at Target, but sure. It's a panic button that sends off a signal from anywhere. It sends his GPS coordinates directly to my personal communicator that I never take off." He showed her what she'd assumed was a diving watch until now. "That way he can always call me for help."

He made a startled noise in his throat when he found himself yanked to Nat's chest and hugged tightly. She gripped his back and held him so close that his sudden intake of breath nudged them a bit apart.

"Thank you," she mumbled into his shoulder. "I can't— you don't know what it means to me that you'd do that for him. I have one that alerts me, but he needs someone he can count on if I'm ever compromised. I'm glad it's you."

"Hey, hey," he hushed soothingly, alarmed by how her voice cracked. He stroked the back of her head and pressed their foreheads together, looking into her green eyes that he'd be happy to drown in. "As long as I have anything to say about it, you'll always get home to him safely. But I love that kid and I want to be there for him if he ever needs me."

"_Ya tebya lyublyu, Solnishko_." She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, gripping his shirt in her hands briefly before letting go. "Do not let this go to your head, but you are my best friend, and the only person I trust Peter with in my absence— other than Angela Leeds when you're not available."

"I'm pretty sure that's not Russian for thank you, and pretty sure you won't tell me what it _does_ mean, but you can keep your secrets," he told her with a lopsided smile. "And I'm honored. Let's go throw your son the best eleventh birthday party ever."

After they wrapped the gifts and decorated the apartment, Clint shooed her out to go do mother-son bonding with Peter while he added the finishing touches. She was planning to take him to the ballet studio and pick up the friends on their way back home. She was prepared with backup options in case he didn't want to dance today, but he said it sounded like the perfect afternoon. Thus, they found themselves stretching in an empty practice room at the barre.

"Hey, Mom?"

"Yes, little spider?"

"Uncle Clint is really cool," he said in a leading tone. "And if you _also_ thought he was cool, it wouldn't be, like, weird. You know, if you wanted him to be around more often."

She smiled and shook her head. "Petya, he comes over at least three times a week, usually more. For him to be around more than he already is, he'd have to move in."

He paused before he replied, "That was kind of where I was going with that."

She blinked at him. "I don't follow."

"Mom," he sighed, giving her a knowing and exasperated look. "I'm a kid but I'm not oblivious. You really like him. A lot."

"He's my best friend. Of course I like him," she deflected.

"If you don't wanna talk about it, we don't have to." He shrugged, going back to stretching. "I just want you to know that I'm okay with it if you decide you want to talk to _him_ about how much you like him. If it helps, I'm pretty sure he likes you too."

She didn't know what to say to that. Her mind was a jumble. She hadn't loved anyone in a romantic capacity since she lost Alexei, and half of that had been the brainwashing. The Winter Soldier had a certain chemistry with her that they'd both caved to from time to time, but the conditions they met under didn't leave a lot of room for love. She had thought herself incapable of the feeling for so long, sensing a deep brokenness within her. Peter had been the first person she'd _dared_ to love since losing Yelena and all her other friends in the Red Room to her own bloody hands.

Clint... he was so _good_. He had been hurt in some of the same ways she had, did the same dirty job, fought his way out of the darkness of a bad childhood by the sweat of his brow and the skin of his teeth just like her. Yet he remained bright in all the places where she was shadow-stained. Didn't that just prove he deserved a hell of a lot better than her?

Besides any guilt about her past and doubts about her own capacity for humanity... she knew how badly he wanted a family and she couldn't— there was no way she could give it to him the traditional way, and the existence of Peter misled him to believe she could, on some level. She could tell from the way he interacted with Peter that he would be a great dad, and she wouldn't be so selfish as to keep him from that. And anyway, fraternization in their line of work could lead to compromised emotions— an entanglement that would get one or both of them killed.

At the end of the day, she treasured their relationship— needed it— just as it currently stood, and she refused to risk it by attempting to shift it into something new. It didn't matter what she wanted.

In spite of that non-conversation hanging over them, it was a good dance session. They finished it soaked in sweat and satisfied from a sufficiently challenging workout. They arrived at the party and Peter pretended to be surprised even though he'd heard them from the moment he stepped off the elevator. Clint put party hats on their heads so they could match the other guests and started the festivities.

She watched Peter eat pizza with his friends and lead them in a dance lesson to the playlist Clint had assembled, smiling at how much fun he was having. He loved all his presents— including a book about Greek gods' kids from MJ and a set of Star Wars prequel DVDs from Ned— and blew out the candles on his cake with adorably childlike excitement.

She snapped a photo and later framed it. In addition to being plain cute, it was a great picture: soft lighting from the colored string lights Clint put up and the glow of the candles, streamers and balloons in the background, Peter sandwiched between Clint and his two friends with his mouth open to blow out the flame, lips still managing to be turned up in a smile. He looked so happy and young, and Natasha felt that just that tiny moment made everything she'd done to get them here worth it. Clint's joy about it certainly didn't hurt.

His friends asked about the two spiders frosted onto the cake and Clint simply gave them a cryptic smile and replied, "Inside joke."

The evening faded into a sleepover after Clint taught them board games he'd grabbed from the thrift store. Some of the pieces had been missing and they used Lego people instead, when applicable. She made sure all the kids were asleep in their sleeping bags in Peter's room and when she came back out, Clint had dozed off on the couch. She stood over him, momentarily frozen with indecision over joining him or sending him home.

She ended up choosing to nudge him into a better sleeping position and draping a blanket over him. She ran her fingers through his hair and silenced a laugh when his snores hitched a little before resuming a steady rhythm. It was so strange how such a silly little thing made her heart swell up with affection. She looked at him for a long moment before turning away and going to her own bed, leaving the door cracked just enough to hear his noisy sleep breathing.

She knew without a doubt as she drifted into sleep that her heart was in trouble.


	5. Stark Contrast

"I can't believe you're working with _the _Tony Stark The real Iron Man!" Peter gushed, fidgeting with excitement.

"I'm not working with him so much as pretending to work _for_ him," she corrected. "And I'm supposed to encourage his worst habits to see where his limits are. I'm more or less seeing what it takes to sabotage him, how he works under pressure."

He frowned. "Maybe instead you could encourage his _best_ instincts to show how good he could be on the super special secret team with just a little nudge? What if all he needs is just a push from the right person?"

"That's not the mission," she denied gently. "I'm sorry, but they didn't let me contribute to planning this evaluation. They just gave me a rubric and some instructions to push his buttons."

"Clint went off-mission and it got us here and saved your life," Peter countered. "Maybe the mission isn't always the right thing to do, even if you work for the good guys now."

She glanced at the laptop on the bed playing footage of the Stark Expo opening ceremonies, the scantily-clad Ironette dancers in particular. "You think he deserves a chance to change?"

"You did," he retorted simply, his resolve firm.

She couldn't help but be proud of his arguing skills, and she told him so as she ruffled his hair.

"Alright. If it looks like a better idea to nudge him _away _from self-destructive behaviors, I'll make my own calls," she assured him. "Be good for Clint and Phil, okay?"

"No promises," he teased. "Tell me if anything cool happens!"

"Will do, _and_ I'll try to get you tickets to the Expo for you and the boys. I'll call every night," she promised. She kissed him on the forehead and stroked his cheek with her thumb. "I'll see you when I get back."

She slung her bag over her shoulder, adjusted her hidden weapons one last time, and walked out of their SHIELD quarters to meet her transport.

She walked into Stark Industries' legal department and made everyone believe she'd been there for ages in a matter of hours, then ensured that she was the one tasked with taking the papers that transferred power of CEO to Pepper Potts up to Tony Stark. It wasn't difficult, seeing as nobody else wanted to volunteer. That wasn't a good sign.

She tracked him down to his gym, where he was boxing with his driver. He actually seemed to be doing a decent job, and she watched his form under the guise of checking him out. He stopped when he noticed her, but she turned away with a half smile, pretending to focus on having Ms. Potts initial boxes while she watched him from the corner of her eye. He kicked his driver in the chest for lecturing him about not keeping his eye on his opponent, then walked to the edge of the ring, leaning on the ropes. It was strange seeing a man who wore Armani to the corner bodega wearing a gray hoodie, but there he was, pointing to her.

"What's your name, lady?"

"Rushman, Natalie Rushman," she recited, remembering Peter's eye roll at the uncreative alias.

"Front and center, come into the church," he ordered, gesturing into the ring.

Potts made an exasperated face. "No. You're seriously not gonna—"

"If it pleases the court, which it does—"

"It's no problem," Natasha brushed off, walking over.

Potts shot a scolding look at Stark. "I'm sorry, he's very eccentric."

She made sure to keep her movements fluid and enticing as she slipped under the ropes he held up for her, snatching and holding eye contact with intensity. He seemed captivated, hardly blinking even as he guzzled down some horrific-looking green sludge from his water bottle. He seemed to have trouble catching his breath as she stared, and she painted on all the microexpressions indicative of flirtatious interest.

"What?" he asked as if she'd said something he didn't quite catch, jerking his head and blinking.

She received the awkwardness with a tiny smile and a raised eyebrow.

Stark fumbled for the ropes and called to Happy, "Can you, uh, give her a lesson?"

She didn't even pretend to pay attention to the man trying to "teach" her how to box, keeping her focus on Stark. When Happy asked her a direct question, she tuned back in temporarily.

"You ever box before?"

"I have, yes," she admitted, faking a smile.

"What, like Tae Bo? Booty Boot Camp? Crunch? Something like that?"

She pursed her lips, looked down, and cleared her throat to avoid baring her teeth at his assumptions and his tone. If this lesson got very far, she was going to get satisfaction out of causing this man pain. She tuned back out, glancing over at Stark.

She couldn't hear what he was saying aside from when he asked her how to spell her name, but she knew from his expression the _second _he'd found the file of photos from her "Tokyo modeling gig" from googling her. Clint had done a surprisingly good job behind the camera. Aside from where she _got_ her experience, very little of her resume was fake. She couldn't exactly list all of the corporations and criminal organizations she'd infiltrated as references, but she had all the skills she promised. She just didn't learn them at an Ivy League school.

Hogan tried to give her the same lecture about never taking her eyes off her opponent, but she whipped around, twisted his fist out of her way, and flipped him to the ground, choking him with her calves. Potts cried out, but Stark only looked at her like he would pay her to do that again— surprised and impressed, definitely turned on. Hogan tried to spout some bullshit about slipping, but Stark didn't let him get away with that, ringing the bell and declaring it a knockout. She hopped out of the ring and stepped into her heels again.

He finally stood in front of her, seeming ready to sign paperwork, so she said, "I need your impression."

He squinted slightly and deadpanned, "You have a quiet reserve. You're an old soul—"

"I meant your fingerprint," she interrupted, keeping him on task like a professional, but pretending to be charmed.

She smiled and held out the black folder, standing close. He finished adding his thumbprint to everything and declared Potts the new owner of his share of the company. She flipped the folder closed, intent on a quick exit to keep him on the hook by leaving him wanting more.

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

Potts spoke over his attempted "no" and said, "_Yes_, that will be all, Ms. Rushman. Thank you very much."

She dipped her head and made her exit, but not before hearing Stark say "I want one." This made her roll her eyes, because as much as it was conducive to the mission, it was still irritating to be spoken about that way. It was nothing she wasn't used to, but she was hoping that he'd be different, for Peter's sake.

She got orders within the week that she was being reassigned as Stark's personal assistant, which was all according to plan. He asked her to meet him and Potts in Monaco, which she knew would annoy the CEO, but it wasn't Potts she was trying to charm, even if she was very pretty and seemed like the kind of intimidating woman she could be friends with.

She wore a tight red dress that showed off just a bit of her bra, knowing that it would both help her get closer to Stark by keeping his attention _and _tell a familiar story to any observers, of a woman sleeping her way to the top, which made people underestimate and dismiss her. Being invisible and unremarkable was the best weapon in a spy's arsenal, and it was her favorite card to play— mostly for the faces people made after the fact when they realized that the sexy office kitten was taking them for everything they owned and ending their criminal careers (or, until recently, their lives).

It worked like a charm. It didn't hurt that pairing the dress with a gold belt put her in his colors and predisposed him to liking her. She navigated his rapid-fire requests and the media panopoly that swirled around him, executing her duties to a tee while pouring on the charm. She got him a good photo op, internally scoffing at how he purposefully annoyed Ms. Potts into dropping her professional smile, secured the table he impulsively decided he wanted, and bit her tongue at his blasé dismissal of the appointment time she gave him for dinner. "Be there at eleven" as a response to "you have a dinner at nine-thirty" was not even remotely on the attractive side of the line dividing arrogance from confidence.

She did enjoy seeing him squirm under the unwanted attention of Justin Hammer, as well as watching Stark take pot shots at the man's already mangled reputation. Natasha did eventually take pity on him to draw him away from Hammer to his requested corner table, which he abandoned before the food ever arrived, vanishing presumably to the bathroom. But _apparently _ he was actually at the _race track_. She found this out when Potts saw it on the news coverage and started freaking out.

"Natalie. Natalie!"

"Yes, Ms. Potts?" she replied politely, hurrying to her table.

"Did you know about this?" she accused, gesturing to the screen.

"This is the first I've heard of it," she swore, an edge to her voice that might have been interpreted as fear for her boss.

It was closer to: 'If I have to do _anything_ that blows my cover in order to save this reckless man-child from his own stupid impulses, I'm going to kill him _myself_. God help him if he makes my day even ten percent harder than it already is.'

"This cannot happen," Potts fretted, face hard.

"Absolutely, I understand. What can I do?"

"Where's Happy?"

"He's waiting outside."

"Okay, get him. I need Happy."

"Right away," she assured, stalking off quickly to find Stark's driver for Potts.

Happy was determined to get a briefcase that was also an Iron Man suit to Ms. Potts, and Ms. Potts to Stark. Natasha saw the whole thing on TV while she waited in position to do something if Stark's life was gravely threatened. She was impressed that Happy drove the wrong way on the race track and deftly avoided all the oncoming cars. The car finally caught up to Stark as a crazy man with lightning whips was trying to destroy him. Happy earned more of her respect when he rammed the car right into the bad guy and pinned him against the fence. Decisive. Immediate. She could appreciate those kinds of tactics.

She could tell that Potts was screaming at Stark to get in the car, and that he was refusing. The attacker managed to keep striking with his deadly whips, and he dealt a few blows that damaged the armor significantly. Stark, in spite of his general insufferable air, was still very smart and not bad at fighting, so he pulled off a couple of impressive moves before eventually subduing the whip guy. She made a note of his ability to use the environment to his advantage during improvised combat in her report about the Avengers' Initiative.

Whip Guy was cackling and raving about how Stark had lost, and something told her he wasn't just a sore loser. She knew that it had to mean that he wasn't finished with Stark yet. He had other objectives, and she needed to know what they were. Unfortunately, he blew himself up before she or any other agent could ask him.

~0~

She worked with Potts at image management and defusing the media. When Rhodes came by, she pretended not to know how important he was to Stark, tried to dismiss him with an excuse about not wanting to be disturbed. Ms. Potts spoke over her and told him exactly where to find Stark, so she effected discomfort at being sidestepped and went back to phone calls. All this tedious PR work might kill her if Stark's irritating personality didn't give her an aneurysm first.

Natasha entered his room later that night, holding a sleek wooden box. "Do you know which watch you'd like to wear tonight, Mr. Stark?" she asked, pretending not to notice the web of blackened veins spreading across his chest, reflected in the mirror.

It was making her nervous, how bad he was starting to look, though she hated to admit it. Howard Stark had known that palladium would break down like this, though he hadn't thought of what it would do to a human body. He never thought he would have to know. She kept hoping Nick would come through with Stark Senior's files any day now so his son would have what he needed to stay alive. She feared that without help, Iron Man was not long for this earth. He wasn't her favorite person by any stretch of the imagination, but nobody deserved to die like that.

"I'll give them a look." She watched him watching her as she poured a martini, and he asked, "I should cancel the party, huh?"

"Probably," she responded lightly, sauntering over with his drink resting lightly in her hands.

"Because it's—"

"Ill-timed," she completed, holding intense eye contact and gliding closer on slow, sultry steps.

"Right. Sends the wrong message."

"Inappropriate," she added without heat, still maintaining their stare, but handing over the drink.

He accepted it and took a sip, which prompted her to ask meaningfully, "Is that dirty enough for you?"

He broke eye contact, giving directions about how to make a better drink, which she ignored in favor of placing the watch box in his lap and perching on the couch beside him to touch up his concealer without his permission. She pulled out a compact and carefully dabbed at his cheek with a fingertip and blended, covering the bruise from Vanko's attack. He held perfectly still, watching her with sharp eyes as she focused on covering the blemish.

"I gotta say, it's hard to get a read on you. Where are you from?"

"Legal," she replied, tongue-in-cheek.

He looked down and sighed, as if knowing she was avoiding saying something, but reluctantly letting it slide. Tony Stark was looking at her with the most earnest eyes she'd ever seen, the charming smirk not doing enough to hide the fear in his eyes. This was the face of a man who knew he was dying and had something on his mind. She couldn't let him know she knew that, though. Not without breaking cover. He leaned in closer, and she mirrored him with Natalie's flirting smile.

He asked hesitantly, "Can I ask you a question, hypothetically? A bit odd."

"You just did, Mr. Stark," she teased.

"Another question," he huffed, uncharacteristically serious.

She was curious where this would go. "Ask away."

"If you knew that your next birthday party would be your last birthday party you would ever have," he began, voice cracking on the word 'last,' "how would you spend it?"

Her mission parameters dictated that she use this opportunity to push Stark to reckless behavior. All she would have to say is that she would do whatever the hell she wanted and Stark would carry on with the wild party he had planned, likely doing something so catastrophic at it that it caused an international incident. It wouldn't be difficult to persuade him. But she remembered Peter's suggestion: to encourage Stark's _best_ instincts instead. What if that was all he needed?

Well, between Peter and Fury, she knew who she'd trust more to make a decision about the morally right thing to do. Just because SHIELD were 'the good guys' didn't mean she trusted them completely. If Nick had his way in the beginning, she'd probably be dead by now.

She breathed in and shifted her weight, pausing as if to think about it. "Well, I would spend it with... a bottle of vodka, one of Chekhov's better plays, and the person I love most in the world," she decided, smiling.

"So, what this tells me is that you like the strong stuff, deep thought type reading, and that you have someone pretty special in your life," he listed. He then adopted a pose like a girl at a sleepover teasing the host about her crush. "I love gossip, so I want you to tell me _all _about your sweetheart," he cooed.

Natasha couldn't help laughing— her real laugh, not Natalie's charming one. "You have the wrong idea, Mr. Stark. I don't have a boyfriend or... anyone like that." Not a lie, even if she might wish it was more often than not.

"Then who is your special someone?"

Natasha hesitated before deciding on honesty, since it was least likely to bite her in the ass later and she was going for the genuine approach anyway. Mentioning Clint and their mutual... something... wouldn't get her far. But it wasn't a lie to say she loved Peter more than anyone, no matter how she felt about her partner.

"My son," she answered, smiling at the thought of Peter. "He's eleven and the best thing to ever happen to me."

Stark recoiled like she'd just admitted to having a highly contagious disease. "You have a kid? This is the first I've heard of it. It wasn't in your files."

"I'm not open about it much," she confessed. She huffed a laugh at him. "Mostly because I get reactions like that."

He waved his hands at her and backpedaled. "No, no! I'm just... surprised, is all. You don't seem like the mom type. You're too... fun."

"What, moms can't have fun?" she challenged, winking. "I love Peter, but I don't tend to tell people about him until they express interest in being more involved in my life."

"Tell me about him, then," Stark suggested, perking up again. "I've been saying I want to get to know you better. Gotta say, you don't look old enough to have an eleven year old kid."

"I had him young," she lied, tucking her hair behind her ear in a very Natalie way at the implied compliment. "He's kind, like the _sweetest_ kid in the world, and _so_, so smart. He actually loves you."

"Really?" he hummed, puffing out his chest. "He's an Iron Man fan, huh?"

"Well, isn't everyone?" she joked. "In all seriousness, he _does_ like Iron Man a lot, but he's actually a fan of your inventions. He likes _Tony Stark_."

He seemed shocked at that, at a loss for words. "He likes the regular old science stuff?" he checked after a moment, tone weighted by doubt.

"Oh yeah," she confirmed. "He read your paper on renewable energy and talked my ear off about it for _days _after. He basically wants to be just like you when he grows up."

"He does?" Stark asked in the softest, most vulnerable voice.

"Absolutely," she swore, and it was the truth. "He doesn't really like attention as much as you do, but the science and the saving the world? It's pretty much his life's dream to do what you do."

"I'm both flattered and also terrified of the example I've been setting," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. "What kind of legacy am I leaving?"

"Is it a pressing concern?" Natasha asked gently, cocking her head. "You're only five years older than me."

He turned away, frowning, and whispered, "Maybe more than I'd like it to be."

She placed a hand on his shoulder and essentially threw her mission parameters out the window. "Is this about the black lines on your chest?"

He flinched, startled, and placed a hand over his arc reactor. He looked over his shoulder at her with a guarded expression, but she didn't move away. She regarded him seriously.

"You wear a lot of open-collared shirts," she murmured. "I notice details. I also noticed all of the art you've been selling, the charity donations, the crazier-than-normal behavior... Now you're asking me about last birthdays. It's not a hard puzzle to put together, even if I don't like the picture the pieces make."

He nodded, deflating. "The thing keeping me alive is also killing me. I'm working on it, but... I've hit a wall, and I'm running out of options... and time."

"I can't help with arc reactors, but I can help make a good birthday," she offered. "So, if we're following my three point plan: favorite drink, favorite author, favorite person— go."

He smiled weakly. "Whiskey, I don't read for fun, and... probably Rhodey. He's my best friend. He and Pep— they're all I have, really. Happy, too. I don't know if JARVIS and the bots count as people."

"I take offense at that, Sir," a voice from the ceiling informed him, primly.

They both laughed, and Stark apologized. "Sorry, J. But in fairness, when _aren't_ you with me? Making a point of spending my birthday with you would be moot since you're always in my ear."

"I accept your apology and to a lesser extent, the validity of your counterpoint."

"Thanks," he sighed. He looked to Natasha. "So how does this fit into your plan, Ms. Rushman?"

"I can cancel the big party, trim the guest list to just the people you really care about, and tend bar, if you like. You'll have to figure out your own substitute for the favorite author."

"You bartend?" He raised his eyebrows at her and gave her a half smile.

"Didn't think it was relevant to my resume," she retorted. "Shall I make the arrangements, Mr. Stark?"

"Tony, please," he said with a wave of his hand. "And... yeah. That sounds perfect. I'll rummage in a cabinet to see if I can't find some board games or something."

"I'll have to insist on Nat, if we're dropping formalities. I'll make some calls." She stood up and pulled her phone from her pocket, walking a short distance away.

Several displeased phone calls later, she had uninvited all of the riff-raff and canceled the catering and entertainment, keeping only a modest birthday cake that she placed at the end of the bar. Potts, Rhodes, and Hogan showed up to a fully decorated lounge with no DJ or strippers or sea of drunken guests in sight, confused. Natasha was waiting for them behind the bar, wearing a spare dress shirt of Tony's knotted at the waist over her leopard print party outfit and a black apron over the whole ensemble. She waved them over with a plastic Natalie smile. They all wandered closer, looking wary.

"What happened to the party? Where's Tony?" Potts demanded, suspicion lacing her tone.

"Mr. Stark has opted for a more... low key celebration," she replied diplomatically. "He wishes to spend the evening with his closest friends. All of the other guests have been uninvited."

"Then what are you still doing here?" Happy inquired, brow furrowing. He still hadn't forgiven her for the boxing incident. It was _his _fault for patronizing her.

"The lovely Ms. Rushman offered to tend bar this evening!" Tony called, stepping out of a back room with his arms full of game boxes. He dumped them on the coffee table before returning to accept a Miami Sour that she slid across the counter, raising the glass in her direction before taking a sip. He made a surprised and delighted face and took another. "Mmm! This is a _fantastic_ drink, thank you Nat."

"Nat?" Pepper echoed, frowning at Tony like she was ready to beat him away from the potential sexual harassment lawsuit with a stick.

"Oh, we just had a heart to heart sorta thing and I now have permission to call her a nickname," he explained brightly. "I can attest to the fact that she makes a mean cocktail, so please help yourselves and then we're doing game night!"

"Tones," Rhodes sighed. "Not that I'm not thrilled this isn't one of your usual wild parties that ends in a noise complaint, but what happened? This isn't like you."

He was quiet for a moment before he was all smiles again. "Someone," he started, eyes darting to Natasha, "just reminded me what was important. And if I wanna spend my birthday losing at Risk to my favorite people, that's what I'm going to do."

Rhodey glanced at Natasha, who only replied with a cryptic smile and a gesture from her cocktail shaker that said, "go on." He gave her a thankful smile and a nod of respect. He turned back to Tony and clapped him on the back, grinning.

"Well, if she knows how to make a good sidecar, I'm down."

"Coming right up," she accepted with a wink, grabbing a bottle of brandy and flipping it into her other hand to pour into her shaker.

While she did that, she used the other hand to grab a bottle of triple sec, which she switched to her other hand by rolling it down her shoulders all the way to the opposite elbow. She then used her elbow to bump the bottle into the air long enough for her to set the brandy down and snatch up the triple sec, which she poured into the shaker as well with a flick of her wrist.

At the dumbfounded stares she got, she shrugged and explained, "I got tipped better when I put on a show, so I got good at bottle tricks. Never hurts to practice."

"You are _full _of surprises," Tony remarked, watching in fascination as she added the other ingredients without seeming to look.

"You have no idea," she agreed cryptically, capping the shaker and then swishing it back and forth— uncapping it and pouring its contents into a martini glass in one smooth motion.

She pushed it across to Rhodey, who took a sip and smiled instantly. "Damn, that's good. You must have been a hell of a bartender."

Natasha thought back to the Vegas job that had ended in a truly spectacular bar brawl... which resulted in the bar burning down. She nodded, picturing the owner's purple face as he cursed her out from the back of a police cruiser, arrested for money laundering. "My manager definitely thought so."

"If you really don't mind slinging drinks, I'll take a Tom Collins," Happy coughed. "Please?"

Good. He was learning.

"Since you asked so nicely," she hummed, going through the motions of stirring its ingredients and handing it over to Happy. She tilted her head at Pepper. "And you, Ms. Potts?"

"I'll start with a Death in the Afternoon," she said evenly, raising a brow.

"Hemingway fan?" she asked casually, mixing absinthe and champagne.

"Well-read in general," Potts returned. "What do you usually drink?"

"Vodka, straight," she replied, handing over the requested drink. "Though I do like a good Pink Lady. Gin is something I have to be in the mood for."

Potts raked her with a searching look that she bore easily, and the CEO must have found something she was looking for because she finally nodded slightly and took a sip of her drink, blinking in slight surprise. "That _is_ good," she admitted. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Enjoy your evening, and come back if you want a refill... or to try something new," she added with a suggestive edge.

To her surprise, Pepper smirked and slid her eyes at Natasha in a sideways glance. "I just might."

"I don't know what's happening here, but I _do _know that I would love to play some Jenga," Tony changed the subject in a rush. "Who wants to rain chaos down on the coffee table with me?" He glanced back at Natasha and added, "You're welcome to jump in any time if you want, Nat."

She shook her head and waved a book at him. "Thank you, Tony, but I have Mr. Solzhenitsyn to keep me company. Go play games with your family."

He creased his forehead at her, but then his face bloomed into a smile and he gave her a cheerful salute before wandering away. Natasha had a grand time watching him be dramatic about board games from behind the bar. She even texted Peter a picture of him holding his Monopoly money away from Rhodey with both hands and keeping him away with his foot. She sent him another, sweeter picture of Tony blowing out his birthday candles with a smile on his face, surrounded by loved ones.

He was entertaining to observe. Funnily enough, she kept catching him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, just like she was doing to him. She always looked away first.

~0~

The next morning, Tony gave into the military by making a very specific contract that let Rhodey be the only person to use one Iron Man suit, forbade them from attempting to duplicate it, and explicitly stated that neither Justin Hammer nor his associates was allowed anywhere near it. He went to brood and ride out the hangover in the doughnut shop sign, and Fury had to get him to come down while she checked on securing the perimeter.

Natasha walked in to update Fury on the situation and to recommend wrapping this up or moving it elsewhere. She was wearing full tactical gear so that the truth would be obvious. She stopped with a hand on her hip and kept her professional face in place while she made her report.

Stark stared at her over his sunglasses with a combination of betrayal and dismissal. "You're fired."

"That's not up to you," she retorted, raising an eyebrow.

"Stark, meet Agent Natasha Romanoff of SHIELD."

"I'm a SHIELD shadow. Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to keep an eye on you by Director Fury."

"I suggest you apologize," he slurred coldly, glaring.

Fury interrupted by listing all the warning signs they'd had that he was dying— all the chaotic behavior and making of arrangements that would function in his absence. She got up to get the lithium dioxide while Fury chewed him out for dying. She injected him in the neck with the solution and ignored his quip about stealing his kidneys while Nick explained how they planned to help him not die, only jumping in when she felt it was necessary.

"I want a minute to talk to the triple imposter," Tony requested when Fury finished talking.

Fury left the two of them with instructions to get back to Stark's house when they were done talking about feelings so he could "get to work on saving his own ass." She slid into the seat Fury vacated. Stark looked at her with an expression of shattered trust.

"Was anything about you real?" he asked, trying to come off as scoffing, but instead having his voice break.

She sighed, trying to shed all her layers of disguise and just be genuine. As kindly as possible, she explained, "Yeah. Most of it, actually. Everything I told you about my son was true, and what I said about how I'd spend my last birthday, everything I said about legacies and the kind of man I know you can be. Cover story of a personal assistant named Natalie Rushman and most of my resume are fake. Becoming your PA was my job; becoming your friend wasn't."

"You lied to me. You were _paid_ to lie to me," he accused, hurt and angry.

"Technically, I was paid to lie to you, push your buttons, and see what it would take to put you on your worst behavior while assessing you for the Avengers initiative," she listed. "I broke mission by making the call not to do the middle two."

The anger melted into confusion, though the hurt remained. "Why?"

"Advice from my son. He said that it would say more about you to find out how hard it was to make you give into your _best_ instincts rather than how easy it would be to make you give in to your worst ones." She smiled, huffing, "I'm told that's actually what teams are supposed to be for: bringing out the best in each other."

He softened, but the suspicion didn't leave his eyes. "Thank God for Peter, then."

"I do, every day," she said, peering at him to discern how he was feeling about her. "I understand that this changes things, and that it's going to be hard to trust me after we met under a pretense. I don't have any hard feelings about that, by the way, or about you needing space for awhile. But just so you know, I still consider you a friend."

She stood up, turning to go, but his voice stopped her. "Is your nickname really Nat?"

She looked over her shoulder at him with a tiny smile. "According to my only other friend, it's his compromise for me not letting him call me Tasha."

"See you around, Nat," he said, in a tone that even she couldn't quite read.

"Make sure you do," she replied. "Don't die, Tony."

His reassuring smile was less reassuring than it could have been, shaky and sadness-tinged. "I'll do my best."

Stark was locked in his lab with no outside communications for the foreseeable future until he managed to save his own life. Of course, he ended up sneaking out in order to do that, but he had good cause. It did result in him pissing off Ms. Potts, but she and Natalie were well on their way to becoming friends by bonding over being tired of Tony's bullshit. She kindly didn't rat him out to SHIELD for leaving, thinking he must have a good reason, but she made it clear that he needed to get his ass back home _now_.

"Yeah, I just needed something from the office," he muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face and looking forlornly at the strawberries Pepper had refused. "It's a clue Howard left me."

She softened toward him and reached past him to snag a strawberry. His eyes followed it to her lips, and she bit into it slowly, savoring the sweet burst of juice. They actually were very good strawberries, perfectly ripe and delicious, and she popped the rest of it into her mouth sans stem, licking her lower lip. She made the impulsive decision to snatch the carton from the desk and stack it on the folders in her arms.

"I'll take these if you're not going to eat them," she said casually, selecting a strawberry without a stem and eating it all in one bite. "Take your clue home, Tony. I'll hold the fort down here."

She walked to the door, but halted at a question. "Do you even speak Latin?"

Turning back to him, she shot off, "Fallaces sunt rerum species."

"What does that mean?" he asked as she turned away and threw the door open.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "It means go home or I'll have you collected."

Nat swept out of the room, leaving Tony in bewilderment and enjoying another strawberry. Mmm, she was going to have to ask him where he got these. Strawberries were Clint's favorite.

She worked with Ms. Potts and maintained her cover, but got updates from Coulson about Tony's progress in _creating a new element,_ apparently. Science was something she only understood enough about in order to get the job done, but she understood enough to be impressed. When Coulson was reassigned to the 0-84 in New Mexico, she no longer asked for updates and instead just peeked at the reports the new agents sent to the director. Those were nowhere near as detailed or amusing, though.

She distracted herself from this dearth of information by calling Peter with good news from Ms. Potts herself. "Hey, little spider. How are you?"

"Mom! Things are good here. I've only had one _teensy _tiny lab explosion since we talked yesterday, but we only lost the microwave I make popcorn in. How are you?"

"Stark knows I'm an agent, and he's not taking it well," she sighed. "But he's making progress on not dying, so that's good news. That's not why I called though. I have two tickets for you and Clint to go to the Expo tonight."

"That's so awesome! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. Ms. Potts gave me the tickets since Stark is busy, but I'm sure he would have if he had the time. I have to work tonight, but have fun, baby."

"I will! Good luck on your mission! Love you."

"Love you too."

The Hammer weapons demo was boring until it wasn't. She and Potts had to attend as a professional courtesy, and it was overblown and predictable until Tony came soaring in and stole the show, delivering the scant warning necessary to keep people from getting shot by the hijacked Hammer drones. She and Potts encouraged the stragglers as they sprinted away from the epicenter of chaos. The thought at the front of her mind was that Peter was somewhere out there because of her, but she had to trust Clint to keep him safe and stick with the mission so she could help Iron Man get rid of these things before more people got hurt.

They stormed to the desk where Justin Hammer tried to block them from investigating what the hell was going on. He was being uncooperative, but she would have settled for intimidating him if he hadn't muttered to the guard, "Get these bitches out of here."

She slammed his head against the desk and twisted his arm behind his back so fast that the end of that mistake of a sentence was a scream.

She growled, "Tell me who did this. Give me a name!"

"Ivan, Ivan, Ivan!" he grunted as she shoved his face harder against the desk. "Ivan Vanko."

"Where is he?" she demanded, digging her fingers into his forearm.

"My facility. He's at HammerTech."

She released him with a shove and stalked away, leaving the situation in Ms. Potts' capable hands. She saw Hammer get shoved out of the way and glared down when he made the mistake of addressing Pepper as "honey," and heard her order the nearest lackey to get the police. Natasha smiled a little at that, proud of the ferocity the woman displayed. She had known they would get along if given the chance. Making stupid men get out of their way _must_ count as a common interest, right?

She found Happy on the way to the car and tricked him into driving her to HammerTech by threatening to drive herself. She changed into her catsuit in the back of the car, only having to remind him once to keep his eyes on the road. Unfortunately, she had to remind him _several_ times to stay in the car, all of which he ignored. He did take care of fighting exactly one guy while she ran down the hallway incapacitating guards left and right, so that was one less for her to deal with.

She was particularly proud of one spinning double takedown, but by the end, she was _done _enough with these guys that she just maced the last one without even looking at him. She burst into the control room with guns drawn, ignoring the hanging personnel in a way that Happy apparently could not. She made a beeline for the computer and did not address the gagging behind her. She started typing rapid-fire, eyes scanning lines of greentext code.

"What are you doing?" Happy asked, finally getting past his aversion to the bodies to come closer and hover over her shoulder.

"I'm rebooting Rhodey's suit," she replied, not looking up from her task. Soon enough, she managed to restart it, and triumphantly declared, "Reboot complete. You've got your best friend back."

"Thank you very much, Agent Romanoff," Tony panted.

"Well done on the new chest piece," she remarked. "I'm reading significantly higher output and your vitals all look promising."

"Yes, for the moment I'm not dying. Thank you," he huffed.

"What do you mean you're not dying? Did you say you're dying?" Pepper demanded, looking freaked out. When had she gotten on the video chat?

"No! I mean, not anymore. I mean, well, I was going to tell you, but I didn't want to alarm you. I made you an omelette—"

Natasha wasn't even going to try to make sense of that, especially because there were more pressing concerns. "Listen, save it for the honeymoon. You've got incoming, Tony. The fight's coming to you."

"Great, I'll take care of that. Pepper, don't be mad; I'll formally apologize later—"

"I am mad!" she interrupted.

"I'm fighting off a Hammeroid attack!" he protested. "Later!"

"Fine. Don't die."

Pepper hung up, and Natasha listened to the sounds of battle for a few minutes until they cut every enemy down. She tuned out the mild bickering in favor of tracking the last blip on the radar.

"Guys, you've got incoming. One more. Something's different about it— it's giving off a much higher energy signature."

It turned out to be Vanko himself, and Iron Man and War Machine defeated him with a trick they learned was bad when fooling around with the suits because they accidentally crossed repulsor beams. 'Accidentally' might be a strong word because they did it on purpose just to see what happened. The resulting explosion was the accidental part.

Vanko was down, Hammer drones were defeated, and Pepper had seen Hammer himself into custody. Everything would have been tied up neatly if not for the detonation of the drones and Vanko's own suit.

As it was, Tony barely made it to Pepper in time to save her from the explosion of the one drone they'd defeated on the steps of the Expo hall. The really big blast from the main fight area took out the whole biodome, but there were no casualties, thank God. Once she had confirmation that Pepper and the boys were safe, she prioritized finding and hugging her son over mission debrief.

She called Clint, who answered on the second ring with the last thing any mother wants to hear from her babysitter. "Okay, before either of us says anything, I need you to promise not to be mad."

"I can guarantee you that your first sentence has ensured that I'm already furious," she growled, clutching the phone tighter. "Are you and Peter okay?"

"Yes," he answered quickly, taking the tension from her shoulders. "But, um, Peter did have a close call. He wants to talk to you about it himself."

"Where is he?" She was already commandeering a police motorcycle and driving away before he answered.

"We're at your apartment," he replied. "He's a little shaken up, but he's okay aside from that."

"Thanks for being with him. You can tell me everything I have to be mad about when I get there."

She hung up and drove faster, ditching the bike two streets over to run. Speed was essential, but so was making sure nobody ever tracked down her address from an old police report about a missing motorcycle. Having no patience for doormen, elevators, or keys, she scaled the fire escape and swung into her open window, rolling into her living room and popping up to her feet. Peter was tackling her in a hug before she even fully straightened, and she returned it fiercely. She kissed his head over and over, murmuring reassurances. He held her tightly and trembled in her arms, tembling.

"You're okay, little spider," she promised, stroking his hair. "Tell me what happened."

He described wandering away from Clint, just for a second, to see a display better, and the next thing he knew, he was on the wrong side of a crowd from Clint and the crowds were screaming and running. He said he tried to trick the drone that landed in front of him by pretending to be Iron Man in his mask and gauntlets, thinking it might scare it into believing he had a weapon. Then the real Iron Man scared him by landing behind him and blasting the thing with a real repulsor.

"He flew away before I could say anything, but he told me 'nice work, kid!' He said I did a good job, Mom!" he enthused, bouncing on his toes. "It was super terrifying, but also the coolest thing _ever_."

"I'm glad you're okay. I'll have to thank Tony," she mumbled, hugging him again. "Do you want to come with me when I do?"

"And meet the real Tony Stark?" he gushed. "Do you think he'd like it if I brought one of my inventions, or would he think it's stupid? He makes all these incredible things and I'm not as good as he is."

"Yet," she corrected, tapping his nose. "I promise you that he would love anything you built. He wouldn't think it was stupid, though he might drag you to the lab to make you improve it with him."

"That would be incredible, actually," he breathed, starry-eyed.

"I'll set it up." She smiled at him and cupped his face in her hands, booping their foreheads together.

She motioned Clint forward and incorporated him into the hug, too. Just because he had training didn't mean he couldn't have been hurt or worse in the drone attack. It was a relief to have him safe, too. A steady heartbeat felt by her hand on his back.

~0~

The downstairs secretary for SI was wary of a woman with a child showing up to see Tony, and while that was fair, she was going to make them late for their appointment. With a tight smile, Natasha cut off whatever NDA speech the lady was making with the best of intentions. "Names won't mean much to him, but you can tell him I'm the one who speaks Latin," she suggested, thinking it would save time in case Tony wouldn't let her up under her alias.

That finally got through to her, though she still seemed to think Natasha was here for a paternity claim. She called up anyway, seeming shocked when the immediate answer was to let them up. Natasha took Peter's hand and led him to the elevator bank. He seemed nervous on the way up, so she rubbed his back and assured him everything would be fine.

The doors opened to reveal Tony dressed like it was his day off (it wasn't)— band T-shirt and tight black jeans that her eyes drifted over for half a second. He was smiling, and when his eyes landed on Peter, the smile widened.

"Hey, you must be Peter. I've heard a lot about you," he greeted. "You know who I am, but it's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Stark!" he managed, ecstatic beyond words.

"Mr. Stark, really? You didn't teach him to call me Tony?" he scoffed, shaking his head.

"I raised him to have _manners_," she quipped, making Peter giggle. "Now go ahead and do nerd things. I'll be over here minding my own business unless you start talking about hacking, which is more in my wheelhouse."

She swanned gracefully into the nearest chair, cracking open a book and leaving them to their own devices. It only took a moment for them to get started on science babble. Tony opened by asking what Peter thought of a particular paper about a particular theory, and then they just kept going. Eventually talk shifted to Peter's own inventions, and he proudly showed off his webshooters.

"You built these?" Tony asked incredulously, marveling. "They're incredible. How long ago was this?"

"Well, this version is from a month ago, but I invented them when I was nine, with materials from one of the secondary labs," he explained proudly. "They have a _ton_ of potential applications— nonlethal weapon to restrain bad guys, bandages you can weave to any size or shape in the field that are already sticky, swinging to travel quickly, repairing crumbling structures long enough to rescue people after earthquakes..."

"That's amazing," Tony enthused, poking at the band and getting shot in the face with a web. He laughed it off, pulling it away from his beard with a wince. "Still awesome. Hey, I actually have a project these would be perfect for. We're training drones to weave rope bridges to help people escape collapsed buildings, but rope is heavy and takes up a lot of space. With how much you can compress webbing, it would be perfect for a smaller model that can navigate in tight spaces. What would you say to collaborating with me on your first project as a scientist?"

"That would be the _best_," he whooped, fist pumping. "As long as my mom says it's okay."

They looked to Natasha, who shrugged. "Anonymity is important for us, but there are precautions we can take to make it safe. What you decide is up to you because we can make it work either way, but my recommendation is to draw as little attention to yourself as possible."

"Wait, wait. What do you mean, anonymity is important for you?" Tony asked, waving his hands. "Is it just the spy thing? Why can't Peter be a child prodigy?"

She looked at Peter, because it wasn't just her secret to tell. He nodded, coming over to take her hand. He whispered in Russian that they shouldn't tell him everything, but that he might be able to help them hide if SHIELD ever failed them, so it could be good for him to know some of it. She quietly agreed, adding that she was pretty sure they were friends, so it was as safe as it would ever be.

"What are you saying?" Tony pouted. "I feel left out of the conversation."

"Learn Russian," she quipped. But then she got serious. "We were concurring that since we're friends now, it should be alright to tell you some of our tragic backstory."

He raised his eyebrows before nodding seriously. "We are, even though I'm still a little betrayed by the secret agent thing. I can keep a secret really well when it's not mine. Go on."

"I was a special operative for some not-so-nice people in Russia until about a year ago," she explained. "I defected to SHIELD when my current partner decided to recruit me instead of killing me and now I work for the good guys. But for a long time, I was one of the bad ones."

Peter added, "I was supposed to be an assassin too, but I refused to hurt anybody. We had to fake my death to get away, but there's always the chance they're still looking for me."

"I know that's a lot to take in," Natasha sighed. "I have a lot of paranoia about these bastards who stole a lot from me, and made Peter spend years of his life in an underground base full of cutthroat Russian mercenaries. He didn't see the _sun _for two years. I just need to be careful so that he never goes through that again."

"I promise to never do anything to put you or your son in danger," Tony swore solemnly. "I can work things so that the credit for his inventions will be there when he wants it, but won't draw attention to him now."

"Thank you, Tony. Nobody at SHIELD knows about Peter's training other than my partner, so this is a secret from Director Fury as well," she added.

"So, only three people know this who aren't out to hurt you, counting me," he said to Peter, who nodded. "Okay. Let's do our best to keep it that way."

She smiled at that, feeling warmed and reassured. Tony Stark could be an absolute _mess_, but he was incredibly competent in some areas, including tech and the art of keeping trade secrets. She trusted him to keep his word, and for the first time in a long time, she felt utterly _safe_ for a moment with someone other than Clint.

She elbowed Peter and prompted, "Go back to your nerd stuff, kid. Solve the world's problems."

"You say that as if he couldn't totally do that in a day," Tony egged on. "C'mon, mini spider. Let's make something awesome."

She trailed them down to the lab, curled up on an oil-stained couch, and read her book while the boys babbled about tensile strength and elasticity. Natasha watched them working happily, and she was wrapped in the most curious sensation of being home.

~0~

Tony sat across from Director Nick Fury, ready to receive Nat's assessment of how ready he was for the Avengers. Despite the fact that they were friends, he was a little nervous. He _had_ driven that car in Monaco on a random impulse and ended up having to fight a crazy Russian with electric whips. Even if she liked him, even trusted him, that didn't mean she thought he was a good fit for the program. He tried to peek at the Avengers file and had it slapped closed by Fury.

"Don't touch until after you hear Romanoff's evaluation of you," he reprimanded, flipping open another folder and peering at it like someone who missed having reading glasses. "It reads as follows: I could tell within a week of meeting him that Mr. Stark displays compulsive behavior, self-destructive tendencies, and textbook narcissism."

Tony frowned, finding very little he could disagree with, but he was prepared to try. "I was dying—"

"I'm not done," Fury cut him off. He cleared his throat and continued. "However, upon further interaction and evaluation, I have concluded that these qualities were exasperated by the fact that Stark believed he didn't have long to live. It is my assessment that while Tony Stark is still capable of selfish and self-destructive actions, at his core he is a good man. He displayed a willingness to risk his life for others, an ability to plan for worst case scenarios, and a surprising humility that allowed him to learn from and work to make up for his mistakes. He may or may not be ready for a team, but it is my opinion that a team may be exactly what he needs to bring out the best in him."

Fury flipped the file closed and looked at him with a face that said "So what do you think of that?"

"She said all that about me? But I hit on her, like all the time when she was my assistant."

"You were supposed to. She was flirting," Fury said simply. "It was part of her job to flirt. But it seems that Agent Romanoff thinks that you'd be a good fit for the Avengers' Initiative. _Now_ you can look at the other file, after which you will give me your answer if you're in or out. You have my number."

He stood up and left Tony alone in the room to skim over the Avengers file. He did so in silence for a while before he felt another presence behind him. "That you, Nick?"

"Sorry to disappoint," a familiar voice jabbed in a smoky rasp that made his heartbeat skyrocket.

Natasha appeared from the shadows and sat down in the seat Fury had vacated. She looked at him with an indecipherable expression, leaning her head on her hand.

"You read my assessment?"

"I did," he gulped, swallowing a lump in his throat. "Why were you so nice to me? I was a dick for most of the time you've known me."

"Hmm, yeah, but you also acted a lot like a hero when it counted, even if you did set a building on fire by accident," she teased. Then she sighed, pursing her lips. "You also saved my son's life, and I don't think there's anything I could do to stop owing you for that."

"What are you talking about?" Tony was baffled. When had he done that?

She blinked in surprise. "Shit, did I never actually thank you for that? Yeah, the kid in the Iron Man mask that you saved from the Hammer drone was Peter. He was freaked out, but also ecstatic that he'd gotten so close to a real superhero. I didn't find out till I got home the night of the attack."

He sat back heavily in his chair, scrubbing a hand down his goatee. "Holy shit. I can't believe I saved your kid without knowing it. I'm glad Peter's okay."

"Me too," she admitted softly. "I was worried about him the whole time because I knew he was at the Expo, but I trusted Clint to keep him safe while I worked on the Vanko situation. Thank you for protecting him."

"Of course," he blurted like it was the simplest thing in the world, and maybe it was. "So is that why you recommended me for the Avengers?"

"It was a factor," she allowed, tilting her head at him. "But mostly it was because Peter was right. A team could be good for you, and you'd be a valuable person to have on a team responsible for world-ending level threats. You deserve a chance to prove you're more than your worst behavior."

"I'm valuable?" he teased with a twinkle in his eye.

She rolled her eyes. "Only an idiot or a liar could say that you're not a brilliant inventor, and your combat skill is honestly decent for a rich pretty boy who didn't start learning mixed martial arts until _after _you built a suit of armor. I'd be happy to school you any time, by the way. No offense to your driver, but I think I have a _little _more experience."

"Promise not to damage the moneymaker?" he joked, gesturing to his face.

She smirked. "Nothing irreparable," she hummed. "I promise to at least spare you any dental work."

"I'll take it. Say, Saturday at three o'clock?" he suggested wryly, waggling his eyebrows.

"It's a date," she replied lightly, rising and going for the door. She paused and clarified, "It's an expression. Don't get the wrong idea."

He raised his hands in surrender. "Wouldn't dream of it. Though it's a blow to the ego that the Stark charm isn't working on you."

She smirked. "It might've... if there wasn't someone else. You're easy on the eyes, and surprisingly funny— but only sometimes."

"I'm hilarious, and I thought you said you didn't have a boyfriend." He squinted suspiciously.

"I don't. I might be a Russian spy, but I'm allowed to pine. I yearn," she said with a touch of defensiveness.

"Nobody accused you of not having feelings. I hope it works out. With your... someone else. Really, I do."

"Thanks," she accepted with a tiny smile. "Me too."


End file.
